Harry Potter and the Dream Come True
by grand admiral chelli
Summary: After a gross miscalculation by the Dark Lord, James Potter is alive and well again, and having the time of his life as he, Sirius, and Harry take Hogwarts by storm! Year 5 AU fic
1. In the Beginning

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter One: In the beginning

It was your typical crisp, chilly day in late October, and the town of Godric's Hollow looked like something out of a fairy tale. Rows of small cottages with thatched roofs lay clustered in the center of a pleasant valley, with smoke billowing from the brick chimneys, and light twinkling merrily from the crackling fires inside each picture-perfect home. In fact, had it not been for the strange sounds coming from one slightly larger home near the edge of the town, there would be no reason at all to suspect that there was something rather peculiar going on. Or just how peculiar that something turned out to be.

James Potter cackled madly as he watched the scene unfold about him. Despite his wife's declarations, there was no doubt in his mind as to which parent was at fault. It was a well-known fact that never, under any circumstances, did you allow a baby within five feet of a magical wand… or any other potentially dangerous object, for that matter. It had therefore been a reasonable assumption on James's part when he discovered his infant son sitting on the kitchen table, clutching Lily Potter's wand in his tiny fist, that the blame lay solely on his wife for leaving her wand lying around unattended.

The baby in question, Harry James Potter, was more than pleased with the situation, although as said child had not even mastered the talent of speech yet, it was rather difficult to prove or disprove this theory. From the sparkle in his brilliant green eyes as he waved the wand around wildly, though, it was fairly clear what his feelings on the matter were.

"Harry," Lily pleaded. "Give the wand to Mommy. You know you aren't supposed to touch Mommy's wand."

Harry clearly didn't agree with her, and to prove it, he swished the wand and quite unintentionally shot a jet of light directly into his mother's stomach. Lily opened her mouth furiously to scold her son, but she could not get a word out because bubbles came pouring out the instant her lips parted. And not just ordinary bubbles: pretty, multi-colored, sparkling bubbles that floated un-relentlessly from an astonished Lily's mouth.

Needless to say, James found the whole episode rather amusing.

This was an understatement, truth be told. James abandoned all pretense of portraying the concerned husband and collapsed to the floor in hysterical laughter, and it was a good thing, because had he stayed upright a split second longer, he would have been hit by the oven mitt his furious wife had chucked at his head.

_It's alright for him_, Lily thought furiously. _He's got a counter to hide behind, and a wand to protect himself with, while all I've got is one oven mitt, and my motherly instincts._ _Assuming I've got any, of course, and the last year hasn't simply been a fluke._

Clearly pleased with the pretty bubbles he'd created, Harry swished the wand through the air again, and as a horde of purple gerbils charged across the kitchen floor, James realized that he'd better take control of the situation before Lily lost it and killed someone – namely, him. Redheads were notorious for being overly emotional and prone to fits of violence, after all. Lily hit him every time he said that, which in James's mind proved the point perfectly.

As his wayward son raised the wand for a third go, James leaped out from behind the counter, executed a gravity-defying dive across the kitchen table, snatching Lily's wand as he passed, hit the floor with a roll, and landed on his feet with no injuries whatsoever.

"Who's the man?" James gloated, holding his wife's wand triumphantly in the air like some sort of extremely small, unattractive trophy.

Lily did not appear overly impressed, although James may have been misreading her expression, as the cloud of bubbles were obstructing his view of her face. That thought took a minute to sink in, at which point James hastily waved the wand at her and dispelled the bubbles, as well the charm Harry had unwittingly cast.

"Took you long enough," Lily remarked dryly, although James was certain he saw her lips twitch slightly. "Give me my wand back, though, before Harry learns how to Accio it or something."

James grinned playfully. "A please would be nice, you know." It did not take a genius to figure out he had no intention of relinquishing the wand.

Lily glowered menacingly at her husband. "Harry darling, Mommy's going to have to cover your eyes. She doesn't want her darling son to see exactly how much she is going to injure her idiot husband."

Her 'idiot husband' winced. "Daddy is going to slowly back away..."

Suddenly, all playfulness vanished from James's mind as he distinctly heard a loud bang – one he'd long ago come to associate with apparation. He instantly tossed the wand to his wife, who had also frozen on the spot at the noise.

"James…" Lily said slowly. "I don't remember us inviting anyone over tonight… and they would never apparate that close to the house…"

There was only one logical explanation, something which James had been fearing would happen ever since his son had been born. "Lily! It's Him! Take Harry and run! I'll hold him off!"

Lily scoffed at her husband's heroics, although her face was just as pale as his. "James, don't be stupid. I can help!"

James ran a hand anxiously through his hair. "Lily, you know what this means! You heard the prophecy! He means to kill Harry, and you know we have no hope of stopping him if we stand our ground! Please, for Merlin's sake, take Harry and go!"

Glancing from her white-faced husband, to the dark front hallway, to her infant son, Lily gave in to reason and raced forward to pick up Harry. Sprinting to the backdoor, Lily gave it a wrenching tug, but the door didn't budge.

"James, He's sealed the doors!"

"And the windows!" James agreed, tugging unsuccessfully at one.

"Apparation?" Lily conjectured.

"I just tried," James responded despondently.

They stared at each other in indecision.

"Go upstairs and get my broom," James finally ordered quietly. "Get out of the house – blast a hole in the wall if you have to – and find Dumbledore as quickly as you can. Tell him what happened. Assuming Voldemort hasn't made the walls impenetrable, of course."

"What about you?" Lily demanded.

"I'll try to slow him down, although I doubt it'll work," James said resolutely. "It should buy you a few minutes to get clear of the house, at least."

"Don't talk that way," Lily said fiercely. "You'll be fine, you can take him…"

Neither bothered to correct her assumption. No one had ever defeated the Dark Lord in a duel, not even Dumbledore himself.

"Fine," Lily finally managed. "Just… be careful, James…"

"You know me," James replied with a hint of a smile. "I'll find a way, I always do."

Not knowing what else to say, Lily moved forward and kissed her husband one last time, before hoisting her son firmly into her arms and sprinting off towards the staircase. James watched her red hair fly around the corner, before turning back towards the dark hallway and steeling himself for the encounter that was to come. It didn't matter what happened to him, as long as Lily and Harry were safe.

Finally, after what seemed like hours to James (but in reality was less than a minute), a dark figure appeared in the doorway, his menacing aura sending chills down James's spine. It was Him. Voldemort.

_Kind of a stupid name, now that I think about it, _James reflected as he fired off three stunners in rapid succession towards the Dark Lord.

A twitch of Voldemort's yew wand sent the stunners careening back towards James, who was forced to leap to the side to avoid them.

Voldemort stepped fully into the room, and with his sweeping black robes, absurdly long canines, and glittering crimson eyes, he was quite a sight to behold.

"Mister Potter…" Voldemort drawled. "I must confess I am disappointed. From our previous encounters, I would have expected better from you than a simple stunning spell. Rather… amateur, don't you agree?"

James, of course, was completely ignoring the Dark Lord's taunts, as escaping from the encounter alive was of a slightly higher priority in his mind than protecting his wounded pride. _Hmm… Voldemort can probably block almost anything I send at him. Then perhaps something unblockable?_

"Crucio!" James bellowed, and to his surprise it hit the Dark Lord squarely in the chest, and he watched with morbid fascination as Voldemort bellowed in undisguised agony. James had assumed the man would duck, or at least move to the side, but apparently Voldemort hadn't considered James would use such a dark spell. Normally he wouldn't, of course, but with his wife and son on the line…

With Voldemort effectively out of action, James mentally zoomed through his options. He couldn't keep up the curse much longer – he'd only cast it once before, and didn't have enough experience to keep it going for long – so he'd need another plan, and soon. Lily couldn't be out of the house yet – only a minute had passed since she'd fled the room, and James knew she was no great shakes at flying. Another distraction to occupy the Dark Lord, then.

All too soon, James felt his power levels dropping, and he abruptly ended the curse before it could drain his magic entirely. He figured Voldemort would be disoriented long enough for him to follow up with a different curse, but unfortunately the Dark Lord was more resistant to pain than he'd estimated.

"Expelliarmus!" Voldemort choked out, staggering to his feet, and James, completely off guard, could only watch helplessly as his wand flew across the room into the Dark Lord's pale hand.

_Idiot! _James berated himself furiously. _Constant vigilance! Moody's bellowed that at you too many times to forget it at a time like this! _James didn't even want to know what his Head Auror would say if he could see him at this moment.

Thankfully, James had other tricks up his sleeve.

Concentrating deeply, James called upon his inner reserves of strength and summoned forth a massive flaming ball of fire, a rare talent that only few possessed. Voldemort, unaware James was one of these few, was taken aback by the sudden, unexpected move, and paused just long enough for James to fling his boulder-sized fireball at the Dark Lord's unprotected body.

Voldemort just barely managed to erect a shield a split second before the ball hit, but it wasn't strong enough to protect him entirely from the inferno. His robes caught on fire, and Voldemort shrieked in pain as his left arm was burnt severely before he could put out the flames.

_Not bad, _James reflected_, but not as much damage as I'd have liked._

Clearly enraged at the defiant man before him, Voldemort snarled, "Did you seriously think that was going to finish me, you fool?"

James blinked. "Er… yes, actually."

Voldemort sneered. "I'm surprised you can still look me in the face, after the grave mistake you made."

_Okay, that one completely lost me_, James thought in puzzlement. _Since when did I make a mistake? Aside from letting Sirius set me up on that blind date back in sixth year, I've done rather well._

Voldemort cackled maniacally. "Don't tell me the name 'Peter Pettigrew' doesn't ring a bell in that thick head of yours."

"Peter?" James said in confusion. "What does Peter have to do with… oh, _hell_ no… how did you find him? Please tell me you didn't kill him!"

"Kill him?" Voldemort laughed. "I didn't even have to torture the coward."

"But then…" James trailed off with a growing sense of horror. "I don't know what you're trying to imply, but Peter would never betray us! Your twisted mind games won't work on me!"

"Ahh, James, James," Voldemort said patronizingly. "Why would I lie? Surely you can put two and two together! Did you really believe the reason Peter has been disappearing more and more often is because he was seeing a girl? We both know no woman would be attracted to the likes of him! He's been working for me for over a year!"

"No… impossible… he'd never…"

Voldemort was clearly getting bored with the topic. "Believe what you want, Potter, it does not matter to me. I never much liked conversation anyway. Crucio!"

This time it was James who collapsed to the floor screaming, although no pain inflicted by the Cruciatus curse could rival the pain of Peter Pettigrew's betrayal. Getting tired of his sport, Voldemort ended the curse abruptly and quickly hit the panting James with a full body bind.

"It seems, Mister Potter," Voldemort remarked, "that I have won our little duel. As if there was every any doubt."

"Yes, because you baiting me and then taking advantage of it is really considered a fair duel," James snapped, desperately fighting the magical bonds, but to no avail. Voldemort snarled and cruelly backhanded James across the face.

"Do not lecture me!" he ordered, his superiority complex coming into play.

James laughed. "Then try fighting fairly for once, Tom."

That did it.

"Do not call me Tom, you inferior swine!" Voldemort bellowed furiously. "That name has no meaning any more! Lord Voldemort is my title, and you will do well to use it!"

"Right," James agreed sarcastically. "Then let's get another thing straight. This 'Potter' nonsense is not on. My real name is King James the All-Conquering, Ruler of All, and it is you who would do well to use it."

Baiting the Dark Lord when you were effectively immobile was definitely not the smartest thing to do, but as James figured he was pretty much dead anyway, why not have a little fun? When Sirius eventually joined him in the underworld, James would have a blast recounting this little adventure. No doubt his friend would find it highly amusing.

"Potter, don't you dare mock me," Voldemort demanded through clenched teeth.

"I'm sorry, _Tom_, did you say something?" James said sweetly.

"Silencio!" Voldemort snapped, causing James's mouth to snap firmly shut. "How _dare_ you insult me! Crucio!"

_Maybe taunting him wasn't such a good idea after all, _James reflected after the curse was lifted and he regained his breath. At least it appeared the torture was to end, as the Dark Lord had raised his wand with a look of finality on his face.

"It has been entertaining, Mister Potter, but I'm afraid I have a date with your charming wife, and I really can't be late. Avada Ked…"

James blinked in consternation as the Dark Lord trailed off with a thoughtful, slightly malevolent expression on his face. He had a very bad feeling about this.

"As it turns out, Potter, I've thought of a better use for you," Voldemort remarked pleasantly. "Rather than killing you, which is so dull, I've decided to test the latest spell I've concocted on you instead."

"Don't tell me," James scoffed with more bravery than he felt. "It involves immense pain."

"Actually," Voldemort remarked blandly, "you're surprisingly correct. But it is not the pain that interests me. It was what the spell actually does."

"Which is?"

"It essentially parts your soul from your body-"

"Cool, I'll be a ghost!"

"-and sends it to deepest level of Hell."

"Crud."

James gazed disbelievingly at Voldemort. "You're bluffing. No one has that kind of power!"

"True," Voldemort agreed reluctantly. "Not from simply a spell, but once I discovered how to link the curse to a potion… well, it opened up some interesting opportunities."

"Such as?" James asked with dread.

"Well, aside from giving the appearance that you are dead," Voldemort offered, "it also gives me the ability to bring you back to this world by simply destroying the potion."

James blinked. "Why would you do that? Seems an awful waste of energy to me; sending me to hell, only to bring me back. Why don't you just kill me?"

Voldemort smiled mysteriously. "Ancient myths and legends claim that Hell can have a strange effect on people. Perhaps after some time there, Mister Potter, you will be warped enough that you will actually agree to being my faithful lackey."

"You're insane," James informed him politely.

"Perhaps not immediately," Voldemort admitted. "But after a hundred years? A thousand? Think about it, Potter, it's not so hard to imagine."

"Maybe not in your twisted mind," James muttered.

Voldemort scowled. "As fascinating as your witty repartee is, Potter, I'm afraid you have run out of time. I wish you luck; in a place like Hell, I am certain you will need every bit of luck you can get. _Anima Infarus!_"

A beam of magic darker than the blackest night shot forth from Voldemort's wand and hit James in the chest with a sickening slurp. A chill spread through him, and he could literally feel his soul being ripped from his body. The last thing he could see before tumbling away into oblivion was the smirking face of Lord Voldemort. The Dark Lord may have won that battle, but James would have his revenge, even if he had to escape Hell itself to do so.

.:Fourteen Years Later:.

James felt cold. This was odd, because the last word you could possibly use to describe Hell was 'cold'. Cracking open an eye, the first thing James noticed was that his surroundings were different than usual – mainly, there weren't any lava flows or fire storms or pointy-horned devils with pitchforks strolling around drinking tea. In fact, the room he was currently situated in looked rather like a Muggle kitchen. How strange was that?

Reason soon caught up with his senses. The only way he could be back in the real world was that Voldemort had changed his mind and destroyed that potion he'd been bragging about so many years ago. Not that James knew how long it had been since that fateful night, as there weren't any calendars in Hell. But if Voldemort had done so, he certainly wasn't anywhere nearby, which mystified James immensely. Perhaps it had been a mistake of some sort?

Well, either way, he was alive again, with a solid body, and that could only be a good thing.

_No shit, Sherlock_, James thought sarcastically as he wearily pushed himself upright. _Who the hell is Sherlock? I'll have to ask Lily…_

Lily. What had happened to her? James suffered a moment of panic as the implications of his failure to stop the Dark Lord hit him. With James out of the way, it would have been a simple matter for Voldemort to proceed up the stairs and murder Lily and Harry. James highly doubted they'd managed to escape, as Voldemort surely would have made an effort to finish James off faster had that been an issue.

Before it could sink in that his entire family had been murdered by the most dangerous wizard in history, however, an excruciating pain lanced through his head. Many years in Hell had taught James to suppress pain, of course, but it still hurt like the dickens.

Groaning and rubbing his head, James finally noticed the angry-looking middle-aged woman standing in front of him, wielding a mop like some sort of club.

_Whap_! The mop connected with his head again, and this time it took a minute to regain all five senses.

The woman, clearly not caring about James's well-being in the slightest, raised the mop again, shouting furiously, "Get out of my house, you ruffian! Out, out, out!"

James quickly jumped to his feet and sprinted in the direction of the kitchen door, stumbling slightly as his sense of balance had not yet returned. He flung himself through the open door, narrowly avoiding the swinging mop, and landed painfully on the woman's front walk.

"Serves you right!" the woman screeched, slamming the door shut behind him.

_Well_, James thought bitterly, _I can see how badly the world has missed me_.

All sarcasm aside, however, the fact still remained that James was stranded in the middle of a Muggle neighborhood with no idea how he got there. Clearly, something had to be done.

"Okay," James muttered to himself. "What does Lily always say I should do in a situation like this? The five W's."

Simple enough. What, Who, Why, Where, and When.

What: Somehow alive again, wearing torn robes, and missing wand.

Who: Himself and some psychotic mop-wielding Muggle.

Why: No idea.

Where: No idea.

When: That was the crucial question, wasn't it?

One of the W's was about to be answered, however, because as James stood contemplating his options, a street sign caught his eye. Curious, James moved closer so he could make out the words. Written in large, gothic black letters, were the last words in the world that James expected to see in such a tiny Muggle suburb:

"Welcome to Godric's Hollow!"


	2. Reunion

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Two – Reunion

James gazed around the quiet boulevard in bewilderment. Godric's Hollow was completely transformed. The small rows of cottages that had once dotted the landscape had been replaced with apartment buildings, and the peaceful morning air was broken by the rumblings of strange Muggle contraptions as they zoomed along the expansive freeways. Worse was his beloved home: what used to be a cozy, three story manor was now a squat, unattractive, brown bungalow, and where apple trees had once proudly spread their leaves, an ugly grayish rectangle stood, with the same strange, metallic contraptions squatting on top.

"How long was I gone?" James muttered incredulously as he gaped at his surroundings. At this point he realized that he had better get his bearings, and soon, because things had clearly changed since he last stepped foot on the Earth. If he wasn't careful, he'd be killed in some ridiculous accident borne of ignorance, and he knew that once he arrived in heaven, Lily would never let him live it down.

First, however, James needed to find his wand. If his clothing regenerated with him when he'd been pulled out of Hell, then it was logical his wand had done the same. Seeing as it wasn't anywhere on his body, James figured it had fallen somewhere nearby, and proceeded to search for it vigorously. Until, of course, he remembered that Voldemort had disarmed him rather early on in their duel all those years ago, which would probably explain the wand's absence.

Alright then, no wand, and no visible means of communication or transportation. That was fine; James had been in far worse situations during his course as an Auror. In circumstances like this, the best thing to do was establish a false identity and seek information and aid from the locals.

_Right_, James decided. _Then the nearest gathering of locals would be… the main square of Godric's Hollow. Forward!_

Stumbling his way down the long road towards the miniscule commercial district of Godric's Hollow, James briefly contemplated exactly how ridiculous he must look, dressed in dirty, tattered, blood-stained robes, with cracked eyeglasses, and hair in a state of complete disarray. _That's actually rather normal for me,_ James thought ruefully. _The number of times I showed up at the Common room looking like a walking disaster…ahh, good times…_

To his relief, Godric's Hollow had not changed overly much… in terms of the shops and stores, at least. The denizens of the village, however…

Sleek, impossibly fast metal behemoths roared down the cobblestone streets, narrowly avoiding pedestrians, who were decked out in the most outrageous get ups: spiked collars, shaved heads, earrings sprouting out of every bit of flesh imaginable… James couldn't believe his eyes.

_Less gawking, more walking_, James told himself sternly. _Now where to go?_

Bright flashing lights caught James's eyes, and, deciding that a convenience store was as good a place as any, he turned and made his way into the shop. Approaching the counter, James ran a hand through his tussled black hair and said genially, "Good morning, sir! Lovely day today!"

The cashier grunted.

_Alright then…_James thought, mentally rolling his eyes.

"Well, I'm sure you get this all the time, but do you happen to know what day it is?"

"Tuesday."

James waited expectantly.

"The 5th."

"…"

"Of July."

"The year?" James prodded

The man eyed him suspiciously. "1995. Why?"

James's jaw dropped. _I've been gone… for **fourteen years**?_

"You… you're serious?"

"I could lie if you like," the cashier snapped.

"Er… right…" James stammered, trying to keep his cool. "You been around here long?"

"Lived here all my life."

James brightened. "Then you must know the Potters!"

The cashier snorted. "Sure, kid, everyone knew the Potters. Till they done disappeared, of course."

_The Fidelius charm,_ James recognized.

"So… are they still here now, then?" James asked delicately. _Is Lily alive after all?_

"Where've you been the past fourteen years, boy? There was a huge explosion; killed the whole family."

James's heart sank. So it was definite. Lily and Harry were dead. Yet, somehow _he'd _survived the whole ordeal. Wasn't there a rule somewhere that stated you always kill the men, not the women and children?

"Well, thanks anyway," he told the cashier dispiritedly.

The cashier eyed him thoughtfully, looking almost concerned. Perhaps his bark was worse than his bite. "You… knew the Potters?"

"Something like that," James muttered. "We were… close friends." It was odd, really. James knew that, hearing his family was dead, he should be on the floor sobbing uncontrollably. But then, he'd had fourteen years to contemplate their deaths, between being mercilessly starved, tortured, and punished, of course, so that was perhaps why he was reacting so calmly to the news.

"I see," the man said, then rummaged for something under the counter. He emerged with an old white dress shirt and a pair of jeans. "I lost my best friend a month ago, kid… you're not alone with your grief, believe me. Here, take these. You look like you could use a change of clothes. And don't worry about money, it's on me."

James was at a loss for words.

The cashier grunted. "Our kinds gotta stick together. Washroom's in the back."

"Er… thank you, sir," James said whole-heartedly, and almost sprinted to the washroom to rid himself of the clothes that reminded him so much of Lily and Harry, and the perfect life they'd lost. The new clothes were a little large, but were a definite improvement over blood-soaked robes any day, and after trying and failing to tame his hair, James gave the cashier a last thank you, and headed back out into the wilds of Godric's Hollow.

Leaping aside to avoid an out-of-control motorbike, James made his way down the main street until he reached the edge of town. This presented an entirely new problem, one which James had no answer to.

He'd had a fairly clear idea of where he was heading up until now: figure out what's going on, get some new clothes, and get out of Godric's Hollow. Now that he was out, however, the issue of where to go next was prominent in James's mind, and he had no idea what to do.

Once again, due to his lack of wand, Apparating was out of the question. Besides, he hadn't cast a spell in fourteen years – he'd only end up splinching himself. Somewhere in walking distance, then, and preferably somewhere whose occupants would recognize him, believe his story, and hopefully bring him up to date on what had happened during his prolonged absence.

_Remus!_ James realized in a burst of inspiration. _He's only an hour's broom ride to the north! _In walking terms, of course, it would take considerably longer, but… dare James hope? Even if he could find his old friend's dwelling, what where the chances Remus still lived there? And even if he did, how would he react to his friend suddenly appearing at the door after being, to all intents and purposes, dead for over a decade?

_If not Remus's house, then where?_

And there was the crucial question, of course. James could not think of any place better to go, so he decided to stop questioning himself and just get there before he collapsed from exhaustion.

Proceeding about half a mile out of town, James turned off the main road and made his way a short distance into the surrounding forest that encircled the valley in which lay Godric's Hollow. Once sufficiently concealed in the trees, James summoned his magical power, and with a pop, transformed into a handsome stag.

Shaking his magnificent antlered head, James quickly re-acquainted himself with his animal form, having not used it in a very long time. As he re-learned how to walk using four legs, James found himself slipping into the mindset of Prongs, the nickname his friends had given him the first time he'd transformed successfully.

Becoming Prongs was a release in many ways – animals didn't feel emotions like humans did (as Sirius discovered in Azkaban) – and before long, James was able to throw all his worries to the wind, for Prongs didn't have the patience to worry. All Prongs wanted to do was run, and James was more than happy to let his animal self to exactly that.

Around midday, James was forced to shift back to his human form so he could contemplate his newest problem without distraction. James _knew_ that Remus's house was nearby – hell, he could _smell_ the scent of werewolf, for God's sake – so why couldn't he find it?

_If only the scent were stronger, Prongs could track it, _James lamented, shifting back to stag form. _Maybe if I wander around long enough, I'll find it by pure chance. _James snorted. _Yeah, like that's going to happen. _

Trudging dispiritedly through the woods, James had almost given up when he noticed a paw print in the moist soil – it was unmistakably that of a werewolf's. He'd been around one long enough to recognize the signs anywhere. He dutifully followed the trail, and before long began to recognize the surrounding scenery. It did not take long for James to pull up old memories of the place, and navigate his way to the door of Remus's small, comfy, and somewhat run-down cottage.

James shifted back to human form, and after a moment's hesitation, seized the brass door knocker and banged it soundly against the oak door.

About a minute later, the door creaked open, revealing a middle-aged man with kindly brown eyes and honey brown hair streaked with silver. Wearing dark, heavily patched robes, and carrying an old walking stick, Remus Lupin did not look like a man who transformed into a vicious man-killer every full moon, but that was all part of what made him such a unique person. A unique person who was currently gaping openly at James in complete astonishment.

Astonishment, which, to James's consternation, quickly switched to dry amusement.

"I'm sorry, sir, but whatever your intentions were in dressing up as my old friend, I'm afraid I'll have no part in them." His face darkened. "And you should also be aware that dressing up as a dead man and parading about is considered a rather rude gesture. I suggest you remove yourself from my property immediately."

James hastily waved a reassuring hand at his old friend. "No, no, Remus, it's really me, James! I didn't actually _die_, I was just sent to Hell by the Dark Lord for the past fourteen years!"

Remus raised an eyebrow. "Sir, my patience is wearing thin. Kindly leave now, before I loose my temper."

"Look, Remus, I know this is hard to believe, but it's no joke. I really am James Potter!"

"Right. You're James Potter. And I'm the Muggle Queen of England. Get the hell out of my sight before I hex you!" Remus bellowed, losing his temper, which was already frayed from wondering when the newly-revived Dark Lord was going to re-establish his reign of terror.

"Awww, come on, Moony, what do I have to do to convince you?" James complained. "You were never this difficult back in school."

Remus froze. "What did you just call me?"

"Er… Moony?" James said hesitantly.

"Where did you hear that name?" Remus demanded, raising his wand furiously in the air.

James was getting irritated now. How thick could Remus possibly be? "I made it up, you insufferable prat! Remember? When we finally managed our Animagus forms, and we all gave ourselves nicknames, and we thought you should have one too-"

Remus was deathly pale now. "This is impossible. The only people who knew that where James, Sirius, Peter, and myself."

James winced, guessing where this was going.

"Peter!" Remus shouted. "You're a Death Eater, aren't you? Peter must have told you everything! How dare you insult the memory of my friend! _Incarcerous!_"

"Shit!" James yelped, ducking as the conjured ropes shot over his head. "Dammit, Moony, what are you trying to do, kill me?"

"Seeing as you're already dead, I don't see any problem with it!" Remus growled. "_Expelliarmus!_"

James didn't bother dodging, as his wand was still MIA.

This, understandably, caused Remus some confusion.

"Why would a Death Eater show up at my door without a wand to protect himself?" Remus demanded.

"Because I'm _James Potter_!" James bellowed. "For the love of God, Moony! What do you _want_ me to say to convince you? You're a werewolf, nicknamed Moony, bitten when you were a child by Fenrir Greyback. We used to sneak out to the Shrieking Shack to visit you every full moon, and in our fifth year you accidentally attacked me. I got a crescent scar on my leg from the bite, which I told Lily was a result of a Quidditch accident. On Halloween of our fourth year, you confided in me that you had a crush on that Slytherin girl, Elizabeth Zabini, the first girl you ever liked!"

"James was the only person I ever told that to," Remus said slowly.

"Then how would I know it, unless I am who I say I am?" James snapped. "You want more proof? Here!"

James jumped off the porch, and with a flourish, transformed into Prongs.

"Impossible…" Remus gaped, astonished. Although Polyjuice potion could transform a person into a carbon copy of someone else, there was no power in the world that could replicate an Animagus form.

"Remus, what's going on?" a groggy voice demanded, and Sirius Black appeared in the doorway in all his disheveled glory. "What's with the stag?"

Remus was incapable of speaking.

Sirius frowned, rubbing his eyes as he peered closer. "You know, that looks an awful lot like…"

"Prongs," Remus finished, his doubts finally banished. He didn't know how such a thing was possible, but there was no denying that the man before him was James Potter.

"But that's impossible," Sirius argued. "You can't replicate an Animagus form…"

"That's because it isn't replicated," Remus explained with a growing smile. "You want to shift back, James?"

"James?" Sirius asked in confusion.

With a pop, James transformed back to human form. He looked expectantly at Sirius, who was gaping at him in disbelief. Luckily, Sirius didn't need as much convincing as his werewolf friend did.

"But… how?" Sirius croaked, stumbling forward.

"I'm not really sure," James admitted. "Although I have my suspi-ooof!" Sirius had enveloped his best friend in a bone-crushing hug.

"James," he choked, "Is it really you?" James grinned, and gently pushed the man away from him, which took a great deal of effort, considering James suspected Sirius had broken one or two of his bones in the course of the hug.

"No, you prat, I'm actually Snape in disguise," he replied sarcastically. "It sure is nice to have my hair washed for once..."

As James rambled on about shampoo, his two elated friends ushered him into the house, and Remus scurried off to put on a pot of tea. When he returned to the cozy living room, he discovered James and Sirius joking around, and just generally enjoying themselves, something neither man had done in over a decade.

The fireplace suddenly erupted in emerald flames, and an egg-shaped head appeared in the blaze. James immediately leapt behind a nearby couch, reasoning that it wouldn't look good for Remus if he was found in the company of a man who was, by all accounts, deceased. Lord knows the last thing a werewolf needed was more suspicion in his life. Sirius gave him a puzzled look, but didn't comment.

The head, which had a long, white beard, waist-length hair, and twinkling blue eyes, turned out to belong to none other than Albus Dumbledore.

"Good afternoon," Remus said politely, "What can I do for you?"

"Ahh, I see you were in the middle of tea," the Headmaster noted, eyes twinkling merrily. "Such a universal beverage – drunken all over the world, you know."

"Sir," Remus began, "there's something you should know…"

"In a moment, my friend," Dumbledore interrupted. "I have important information for you first. And Snuffles, if he's around."

"Actually, he's-" Remus looked around, but discovered to his irritation that Sirius had joined James behind the couch, and they seemed to be whispering about something.

"That's just fine," the Headmaster cut in, clearly hurried for time. "There was a huge flux of magic earlier this morning, in the vicinity of none other than Godric's Hollow."

"You don't say," Remus said mildly, glancing over at the couch behind which James and Sirius were hiding. He heard muffled laughter.

"Which means something very momentous has occurred," Dumbledore continued. "I'll be over in a minute to give you the details."

Remus shrugged. "Very well, but I must warn you, I have a bit of a surprise for you…"

The old man laughed. "I shall hurry over, then! Take down your Apparation wards for a moment, there's a good man."

A split-second later, Albus Dumbledore appeared in the middle of the living room, his position giving him a clear view of all three occupants of the room.

"Ah, Sirius! Good afternoon!"

"Sir," Sirius greeted with a bow of his head.

"And James as well!" Dumbledore said in delight. "I haven't seen you in ages, my boy!"

It took a moment for the ancient Headmaster to comprehend what he was seeing. Once he did, however, his eyes widened, his legs gave out, and he collapsed into a nearby chair, gawking at the James in downright astonishment.

Remus, cleverly taking advantage of the momentary silence, asked brightly, "Tea, anyone?"

James cackled madly. "You owe me a galleon, Padfoot!"

Remus took that as an affirmative, and proceeded to dole out tea to the occupants of the room.

Sirius was scowling at James. "It was two decades ago, Prongs!"

James scoffed. "Bets don't have expiration dates, dolt. Come on, pay up; you claimed it was impossible to fluster Albus Dumbledore. I think you were just proved wrong."

The duo's bickering had given Dumbledore enough time to process, re-process, and then process again what he was seeing and hearing. Re-gathering his wits, he quickly said with some semblance of calm, "I am assuming that, judging by your friends lack of astonishment and/or outrage, it really is you, James?"

"Indubitably," Remus confirmed. "He's even got the correct Animagus form. This is without a doubt James Potter. Although how such a thing is possible…"

Dumbledore's eyes sparkled more brightly than they had in years. "Incredible," he marveled. "You will forgive me if I run a few tests?"

"Er… sure," James said uncertainly.

Reaching into his cloak, Dumbledore's withered old hand extracted a circular, silver disk which emitted a strange glowing light.

"This is a magic dispeller," Dumbledore explained absently, twirling the top of the device this way and that. "For simplicity's sake, let us just say it dispels all enchantments surrounding a person, including potion-induced enchantments."

"Like Polyjuice potion," Remus added, ever the teacher.

"They are very expensive, obviously, or everyone would have one, especially in troubled times like these, but I think this one shall serve our purposes nicely."

Dumbledore grasped the silver disc between his thumb and index finger, placed it against James's arm, and squeezed his fingers together. A flash of light blinded all four men, and as it died down, it seemed the disk had enveloped James in some sort of silvery liquid.

"Not to worry," Dumbledore said mildly, checking his watch. "The liquid will dissolve in but a moment."

Sure enough, after a few moments the liquid dissipated as quickly as it appeared, leaving James standing in the middle of the room, looking exactly the same as he had before. The only difference was the slightly distasteful look on his face – it hadn't been the most pleasant process to go through."

Dumbledore pocketed the silver Dispeller, and then, to everyone's surprise, embraced James tightly.

"Welcome back, my boy, welcome back," he whispered, and James could only blink in shock. Dumbledore quickly released him, and said pointedly, "You will forgive me if I ask for an explanation, of course."

Sighing, James gestured for his three friends to sit down, and, lowering himself into a comfy armchair, he began to tell his tale. He described his duel with the Dark Lord (although he failed to mention the bit about him chucking fireballs around), Voldemort's sinister spell, and finally what effect it had had on him. When he was done, all three men were understandably stunned.

"So let me get this straight," Sirius said slowly. "You spent the last fourteen years in Hell, before the spell somehow ended, causing you to re-enter our world, looking exactly as you did the night the spell was cast?"

James shrugged. "Just about. I'm not too clear on the details myself. When in Hell, it's rather difficult to determine the passage of time, you know. No calendars and all that."

Remus, ever the optimist, forced an encouraging smile. "But the important thing now is that you are alive! Imagine what Harry will think when we tell him…"

Sirius broke out into a wide grin. "Oh, let me tell him! I've got the greatest idea to break it to him-"

"_No_, Sirius," Remus immediately snapped.

Sirius gave him a hurt look. "How can you say no before I even tell you my idea?"

"Because I know you, and I know what kind of fool ideas you get," Remus said pointedly.

Sirius opened his mouth to argue, but then seemed to think better of it, and closed it. It was true, after all.

Meanwhile, James had been puzzling over who this "Harry" person was that was so prominent in his friends lives. "Do I know this Harry fellow?"

The three men stared at him curiously. "Er…" Sirius trailed off. "Harry, as in… your son, remember? I didn't know you lost your memory, Prongs."

James frowned. "That's impossible. Harry died fourteen years ago."

"Not precisely," Dumbledore informed him gravely. "Your wife died that terrible night – her sacrifice ensured that Harry would survive."

James's head was spinning. "But… that's impossible, isn't it?"

"Lily died saving Harry's life," Dumbledore explained. "Her sacrifice born of love became a shield for her son. When Voldemort cast the killing curse, it rebounded off the shield, striking down the Dark Lord in Harry's place."

James blinked in astonishment. "So you're saying that my son defeated the Dark Lord?"

"Yes," Dumbledore confirmed, mouth twitching as an elated smile grew on James's face.

"I knew that kid was destined for great things!"

"Indeed," Remus agreed. "And thanks to his victory, Harry is perhaps the most well known wizard of our time. I believe some districts of England actually celebrate Harry Potter day, although the Ministry has yet to make it official…"

James paused as a thought struck him. "But… if Voldemort is dead, then how did he destroy the potion keeping me in Hell? Surely he would have hid it where only he could find it."

"That would be true… if Voldemort were dead," Dumbledore said heavily.

"Meaning?" James prodded.

"He's returned," Sirius scowled. "Two weeks ago. He kidnapped Harry, gathered the Death Eaters together, and declared his intention to rule the world."

James's eyes narrowed. "If Harry's alive, then he would have been at Hogwarts two weeks ago. Someone _please_ tell me how Voldemort managed to abduct my son from Hogwarts property underneath all your noses!"

"Peace, James," Dumbledore said quietly. "Mistakes were made; we are only human. The important thing is that Harry is fine, and he was able to return relatively unharmed and alert me to Voldemort's return. I was able to reform the Order of the Phoenix in a matter of hours, and we have had a reasonable amount of success in disrupting the Dark Lord's plans."

James was going to retort hotly, but decided it would be counterproductive. He was done with hearing about Voldemort, anyway; he wanted to know more about his son.

"So tell me," he began with an eager grin. "What's Harry like? When did he first do magic? When did you give him his first broomstick? Is he good? Does he like Quidditch? Is he a prankster? When-"

"James, be quiet a moment," Remus interrupted, which was quite out of character for the mild-mannered werewolf. "Sirius has something to tell you, however much he wishes not to."

"Well, what is it?" James asked impatiently when Sirius hesitated. Across from him, Dumbledore coughed delicately and sipped at his tea, avoiding James's gaze studiously.

"You see," Sirius said hesitantly. "I don't know that much about Harry's childhood, to tell you the truth." How could he say this without sounding bitter and vengeful?

"What, were you not paying attention or something?" James teased.

"Actually, I didn't raise Harry at all."

James paused. "I appointed you Harry's legal guardian. Sirius, _please_ tell me that the Ministry didn't ignore my explicit wishes."

"Er…"

"Sirius was in Azkaban," Remus said firmly.

James blinked. "_What?_"

Sirius winced. "You remember how I convinced you to switch to Pettigrew as secret keeper at the last moment?"

The three men stared at him, waiting for him to comprehend their meaning. After a moment, James's jaw dropped in horror. "They didn't!"

"Yes," Sirius snapped. "They did. Since no one knew about the change – excepting you, and as you were dead, that wasn't much of an alibi – the Ministry set out to arrest me for your murder."

"And Wormtail?" James asked quietly.

"I tracked him down before the Ministry could catch up with me," Sirius admitted. "He blew up the surrounding street, murdering thirteen Muggles, and managed to frame me for the whole thing."

"But… he would have had had to appear as a witness, wouldn't he?"

"Not if he was included in the murder count," Sirius said dully. "I underestimated him, James. He cut off his own finger and shifted to rat form at the last second, leaving me in the middle of a street of dead Muggles. They didn't even give me a trial."

"How long were you in Azkaban?" James demanded.

Sirius sighed. "Twelve years, give or take."

James rounded on the Headmaster. "And where were you in all of this? You of all people should know that Sirius would never betray me!"

"We were in troubled times, James," Dumbledore said quietly. "You must understand that all evidence pointed to Sirius as the murderer. As I had no knowledge of the change in Secret Keepers, I had to assume the worst. If Sirius were not a traitor, he would have been tortured to extract the information, and he was unharmed. What would you have had me do, James?"

"I don't know, maybe used a truth serum?" James snapped sarcastically.

"James, I made a mistake – England made a mistake – and you have no idea how greatly I regret it now. Ever since I learned of his innocence, I have been doing my best to have his name cleared."

"But-"

"Drop it, Prongs," Sirius said. "I've forgiven Dumbledore – no use crying over spilt milk."

"That's what we use _Reparo_ for," James muttered, but let the matter drop. "I imagine they wouldn't let a werewolf take Harry in, then?"

"Indeed," Remus agreed. "According to Ministry doctrine, werewolves are a danger to society. I'm amazed they haven't thrown us all in Azkaban yet. Lord knows they're close."

James sighed. "It never occurred to me that your lives may have been as bad as mine while I was gone." Then he did a double take. "Wait a minute. Padfoot, how the _hell_ are you here if you were thrown into Azkaban for life?"

Sirius smirked. "I got bored, so I left."

"Yeah right," James scoffed.

"It's easy when you're an Animagus," Sirius defended. "It was child's play to slip through the bars as Padfoot. Those idiot Dementors had no idea I snuck out under their noses – literally!"

James's face split in a broad grin. "Bet you're proud! First man to ever break out of Azkaban! Well done!"

Sirius laughed and gave James a high five – something they'd picked up from Lily years ago. They'd thought it a hilarious custom – made handshakes and bowing seem so outdated.

"So," James finally grinned, backing away from his best friend. "When do I get to meet my son?"

Dumbledore checked his watch. "Right now, if you like."

James was taken aback. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," Dumbledore confirmed with a smile. "You appear to be without your wand, so… are you comfortable with Side-Along Apparation?"

"To meet my grown-up son?" James demanded. "Are you crazy? Of _course_ I'm fine with it! Let's go!"

Sirius took a deep breath. "Ohhhhhhh, we're off to see the wizard! The wonderful wizard of Oz!"

He was cut off by a pillow to the head, courtesy of Remus.

"I thought it was funny," he muttered dejectedly, before Disapparating with a pop.


	3. Enter Harry

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Three – Enter Harry

Harry had not been having a good summer.

It wasn't the part about doing chores all day, every day, nor the ridiculous diet he was being forced to follow, that was the problem. No, Harry was having the most dismal summer of his entire life because of the never-ceasing worry that gnawed away at his insides every moment of the day.

Two weeks previously, Harry had witnessed the rebirth of the Voldemort. Ever since returning to his Muggle relatives, Harry had desperately scoured the news for something, _anything_, demonstrating that the world knew of Voldemort's return. Yet, no matter if it was Wizarding news or Muggle, there was not a single mention of anything amiss that could have been orchestrated by the Dark Lord.

Add that to Harry's dreams, which featured endless visits to the Little Hangleton graveyard to watch Cedric murdered, and he was quite understandably miserable.

Every now and then, however, he did get flashes of the outside world, through visions Harry suspected were a result of his connection with Voldemort. And so it was one late night, when Harry was restlessly tossing and turning in his cramped bed, that one of these unwelcome visions visited him.

.:The Riddle House:.

Harry was in a dark, mahogany-paneled room, which reeked with the unmistakable stench of evil. The source of this was soon made apparent – a striking figure with unnaturally pale skin and glowing red eyes was pacing back and forth in front of the roaring fireplace, gazing darkly into the flames.

"I am… displeased, Wormtail," Voldemort said quietly. The man in question, Peter Pettigrew, immediately winced and stepped back slightly.

"Er… why would that be?" he stammered, praying feverishly his Lord's displeasure was not his fault.

"I entered my private laboratory this morning," the Dark Lord hissed, "to find an entire shelf of potions spilled all over my meticulous floor."

Wormtail winced. "Imagine that."

"I don't suppose you are aware of the contents of one vial that was destroyed, my faithful servant? The one that said: Do Not Touch If You Value Your Life?"

"N-no, Master."

Voldemort stormed over to the cowering man and slammed him up against the stone wall. "With that potion, Wormtail, I was able to send your dear friend James Potter to Hell fourteen years ago when I confronted him at Godric's Hollow. When someone so ignorantly _destroyed_ that potion, however, his soul was released from Hell, and returned to our world!"

For the first time in fourteen years, Peter Pettigrew felt a ray of hope enter his traitorous heart. "Potter is _alive_, Master?"

Voldemort growled menacingly at his servant. "Can you see why that might present a _problem _for me, Wormtail?"

It was at this point that Peter realized he was in deep, deep trouble.

"Yet, upon discovering that one of my most hated rivals was loose in England once again, the first thought in my mind was not how to eliminate him," Voldemort said silkily. "Do you know what my first thought was, Wormtail?"

"Er…" Peter didn't even bother answering. The Dark Lord knew everything – he was simply toying with him.

"I wondered who would possibly think he could spill over ten thousand galleons worth of potions on the ground, and hope to get away with it. And do you know what I thought next, Wormtail?"

"I have a pretty good idea," Wormtail muttered.

"I thought: the only Death Eaters with access to my secret laboratory are Lucius Malfoy… and Peter Pettigrew. And of the two of you, my faithful servant, which is the clumsier?"

"Me, Master," Pettigrew replied miserably.

"That's right," Voldemort agreed. "If I could afford to kill you for your incompetence, Wormtail, don't think I would hesitate even a moment to do so. Unfortunately, you are still useful to me, and thus I will let you off with a minor punishment."

It seemed he would not die this day after all. Lucky him.

"_Crucio!_" Voldemort intoned, and Peter collapsed to the floor, screaming in abject agony.

"You deserved that, you know," Voldemort informed his servant almost paternally as Wormtail fought to regain his breath.

"Y-yes, Master," Wormtail coughed.

"What have we learned from this little mishap, Wormtail?" Voldemort inquired silkily as Wormtail staggered upright.

"Don't screw up," Wormtail muttered resentfully.

Voldemort's lips twitched in something that could almost be considered a smile. "You are not as ignorant as I thought, it seems. Now, I have a mission for you Wormtail, and you will not 'screw it up', as you put it, or else you _will_ cease being useful to me."

A false threat, of course: Peter was the best spy the Dark Lord had. But that didn't stop Peter Pettigrew from being absolutely terrified of failing his Master.

"I want James Potter dead," Voldemort said succinctly. "Stone cold dead. I don't want him incapacitated, I don't want him humiliated beyond belief, and I don't even want him to live a life of misery as all his loved ones die around him. Although that is such a classy maneuver."

"Yes, Master. Dead. No classy stuff. I understand."

"You will not fail me," Voldemort warned the cowering man before him.

"I won't," Wormtail promised.

"Very well then," the Dark Lord intoned. "You are dismissed."

The room faded away into swirling black and green mist.

.:Privet Drive:.

Harry woke screaming.

This was for two reasons. Firstly, these strange visions always unsettled him, bringing questions to his mind that he didn't know the answers to: questions like how he could be seeing such things, and, of course, if Voldemort had a similar window into his world. Secondly, thanks to whatever force established these connections between he and the Dark Lord, whenever Voldemort cast the Cruciatus curse or Avada Kedavra during visions, Harry felt every painful second as fully as if the curse were cast directly on him.

Needless to say, Harry did not enjoy these visions very much.

Still shaking slightly, Harry reached over to his bedside table and fumbled around for his alarm clock.

6:00 a.m.

Harry gave a grateful sigh, and collapsed back in his bed, praying fervently for sleep to come. Unfortunately, it was not to be. He woke not three minutes later to the pleasant and melodious sound of Aunt Petunia's screeching voice, ordering him out of bed. Harry gave a heartfelt groan and rolled over in his bed, pulling his tatty pillow over his head in a vain attempt to shut out the noise.

"Boy! Get up _now_!" Aunt Petunia screeched, thundering up the narrow staircase to bang loudly on Harry's bedroom door. "If you aren't downstairs making Dudders breakfast in three minutes, you won't see the outside world for a week!"

"It's called a window," Harry snapped unwisely, wincing as his door was almost blasted off its hinges by his Uncle's gigantic fist.

"Show your Aunt some respect, you lazy, useless, freeloader!" Vernon bellowed. "Get out here now!"

Harry rolled his eyes and stumbled over to the door, pulling it open to present himself to his overbearing relatives. Aunt Petunia gasped in indignation at the sight of him, and Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut in his face.

"Put some clothes on first, miscreant!" Petunia wailed. "We taught you better than that!"

"And get downstairs as soon as you've finished," Vernon concluded, "or else you'll wish you'd never been born!"

"Terrifying," Harry muttered with a smirk as he ambled over to his dresser and began pulling out clothes at random. He was not, in fact, naked, as Aunt Petunia had suggested, but clad in a loose-fitting pair of boxer shorts emblazoned with golden snitches. Harry suspected the snitches were what had upset his Aunt, more so than his state of undress. It was hardly his fault, though. The Dursleys hadn't given him a pair of pajamas in three years, and it was too hot for his flannel pajamas that he wore in drafty Hogwarts castle.

Five minutes later, Harry was suitably dressed and down in the kitchen preparing breakfast for his beloved family, who, for all their criticism over his cooking skills, eagerly downed everything he set in front of them. It depressed Harry to note that he was probably a better cook than almost every student in Hogwarts, and he didn't even have a choice in the matter.

"Two more months," Harry murmured to himself as he snuck an apple from the fruit basket and slipped into the front hall to eat it. "And only one more with the Dursleys, if I can convince Dumbledore to let me visit the Burrow after all." He had corresponded a few times with the Headmaster since he'd returned to the Dursleys, and it looked like he wasn't going anywhere this summer, for reasons Dumbledore claimed were "too secret to put in print".

After finishing his apple, Harry proceeded to go through the motions of a typical day at the Dursley household. This included all manner of chores that, he having done them yesterday, could not possibly need doing again, as well as waiting hand and foot on Dudley and his goon squad. By the time the time to make dinner rolled around, Harry was thoroughly disgruntled with life, the universe, and just about everything in it.

Putting the finishing touches on the roasted duck he'd just pulled from the oven, Harry grabbed the carving knife and deposited slices of the juicy meat onto three plates – he, of course, would be eating last week's leftovers. Harry happily spent the next hour watching his relatives scarf down the meal, as well as the peach cobbler that followed, all three blissfully unaware of the tablespoon of dirt he had sprinkled liberally on their plates as seasoning. Harry felt no remorse over this – he firmly believed that even death would be too kind for his horrendous relatives.

Even though his day was miserable, though, it was no more or less horrible than any other day this summer, which is why after all the plates had been cleared, Harry had settled into his usual after-dinner sulk, and was certainly not expecting anything out of the ordinary to occur. Naturally, something completely out of the ordinary occurred minutes later, and Harry was once again given reason to suspect that God truly did hate him.

This out-of-the-ordinary incident came in the form of a knock on the door.

"Yes?" Uncle Vernon said politely as he pulled open the door. He then proceeded to turn a ghastly shade of white and whimper rather pathetically. "What do you want from me? Stay away from my family!" he bellowed.

Intrigued by his Uncle's reaction to whoever was at the door, Harry peered curiously into the front hallway to discover the source of the commotion.

To his delight, standing in the doorway was none other than Albus Dumbledore, resplendent in his indigo robes and neon orange Wizarding hat. Dumbledore had never bothered much with keeping up with current fashions, which might have been part of the reason for Vernon's horror.

As it was late, and quite dark out, Harry nearly missed the three cloaked figures standing behind the aged Headmaster.

"Will someone please tell me why we are in the middle of the Muggle suburbs, and who the _hell_this fat man is?" the middle figure demanded crossly.

"No need to curse," Dumbledore said mildly, then turned back to Vernon. "I believe it is customary to invite guests inside the house, rather then leaving them on the doorstep, Mister Dursley?"

That provoked a reaction from the middle figure. "_DURSLEY_?" he boomed. "_This_ is where you sent him? I thought you were _intelligent_!"

"In a moment," Dumbledore ordered, raising an eyebrow at Vernon, who paled even more so and scuttled backwards, giving the four visitors room to squeeze inside the front hall, and make their way, much to Vernon's dismay, into the living room. Petunia and Dudley were at the Polkiss's that evening, so the room was empty.

Meanwhile, the rather vocal man was speaking again, muttering furiously to his cloaked companions. "Who the hell is that porky kid in all those photos? This place is so tidy it's nauseating. Where is _he_?"

"That is an excellent question, James," Dumbledore agreed, handing his cloak to a terrified Vernon. "Harry, would you kindly come out now?"

Harry, recognizing his name, stepped hesitantly into the room, not entirely sure why the Headmaster was bringing strangers into his house so late at night. "Er… Headmaster?"

The muttering man gave a muffled gasp.

Harry blinked in confusion. "What are you doing here? Who are these people?"

Dumbledore smiled. "I am delighted to say that you know every person in this room, my boy, even if you haven't seen one of them in a long while."

No one moved.

Dumbledore sighed. "That was my cue to take off your cloaks, gentlemen."

The trio quickly shed the offending articles of clothing.

Harry's face lit up as he recognized the smiling faces of his Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and good friend, Remus Lupin, as well as his one and only Godfather Sirius Black. The third man, though… Harry had never seen him before, although he looked awfully familiar. His eyes were chocolate brown, but the rest of him reminded Harry strangely of…. himself.

"Professor…?" Harry asked slowly. "Is that… he looks an awful lot like…"

"Harry," Dumbledore said gravely. "Allow me to introduce you to your father, James Potter."

Harry gaped intelligently at his long-lost father, before falling to the floor with a thump, his weary mind unable to process this extraordinary turn of events.

When he came to, the first thing he did was stammer out: "But you're dead!"

James blinked. "Actually, I'm alive. That's what you call it when someone walks around, breathing and eating and the like."

Dumbledore waved aside James's babbling. "Harry, I know it seems incredible, and you will find it almost impossible to believe-"

"I know _I _did," Remus remarked dryly.

"- but the fact remains that your father was not in fact killed fourteen years ago, merely sent into… a limbo, of sorts."

"And thanks to a slip up by the Dark Lord, I was able to escape, and return to this world," James concluded, gazing hesitantly at his son, overwhelmed by how much they resembled each other. "You look exactly like me, you know."

"So I've heard," Harry returned quietly. "And I've got my mother's eyes." Staring up at his father, his eyes brimming with unshed tears, Harry was struck suddenly by a crazy impulse to hug his father. Then it hit him: why not? For God's sake, he had a father again! Surely that gave him an excuse for a sudden outburst of affection!

James, who was still staring at his son in awe, was therefore completely surprised when Harry suddenly leapt at him, hugging him for all he was worth. Astonished, and still not entirely believing his son was now a grown up young man, James tentatively returned the hug. Remus and Sirius didn't even bother concealing their amused grins.

"I still can't get over how much you look like me!" James exclaimed, pulling back to survey Harry at arms-length. Harry beamed. "You put on a few more pounds, and we'd be identical!"

At this point, Uncle Vernon, displaying the same courage he had the night Harry had first learned of his magical birthright, pulled himself together and squeaked out determinedly: "If this man is Potter's father, then does that mean he's leaving for good?"

This, of course, immediately killed the mood. Harry gazed uncertainly at his father, clearly expecting rejection. And why not? Rejection was the only thing he'd ever received from his family before this.

James immediately scowled at his son. "Of course it does! Do you honestly think I would leave my only child in the care of bunglers like you lot for a moment longer than necessary? What kind of parent do you think I am!"

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Vernon bellowed, completely forgetting in his anger the fact that every single person in the room could blow him to pieces with but a swish of their wands.

"That means that I think you're an incompetent, horrendously awful excuse for a human being!" James snapped.

Remus, having developed a sixth-sense for this sort of thing over the years, winced at what he knew would come next. Sirius just grinned maniacally.

"You go too far, sir!" Vernon bellowed, heaving himself to his feet and flinging himself at James.

Harry watched in awe as his father stood calmly as the gigantic man rushed towards him. _He's suicidal!_ he thought frantically.

At the last second, James smoothly slid to the side, and, with his target suddenly gone, Vernon proceeded to crash headfirst into the wall, sending several ornaments crashing to the floor, as well as effectively knocking himself unconscious.

James rolled his eyes as if he did this sort of thing all the time. "Now, as I was saying-"

"James," Dumbledore interrupted sternly. "That was unnecessary."

James scoffed. "I've seen enough to know that that overweight git got exactly what he deserved – and don't you tell me otherwise! We've already gone over my feelings over your decisions regarding Harry's guardianship!"

At this point James realized he'd completely forgotten about his son, who was standing in the middle of the room in complete bewilderment. _Maybe I should hug him again_, James pondered. _He's only a kid, after all. Can't expect him to cope with this as well as Remus and Sirius did._

"Harry," James said slowly. "I can't pretend to know what your life has been like, being an orphan and all, but I do know that I'm back now, and I'm ready to try my hand at parent-hood again… if you want me, that is."

Harry blinked in astonishment. "Of course I want you! You think I _enjoyed_ living in a cupboard under the stairs for the first decade of my life?" If Harry didn't know better, he'd honestly have thought his father delusional – had there even been the slightest doubt as to his answer?

His answer, interestingly, had quite a different effect on James than Harry had hoped. Rather than do something ridiculously corny, like hug his son and profess his eternal love, James had a rather disturbed expression on his face.

"You lived in a cupboard?" James asked softly.

_Oops_.

"Er… well… yes, sort of…" Harry stammered uneasily, glancing towards his unconscious Uncle. If his father was willing to knock Vernon unconscious over a simple insult, what would he do once he heard about this?

"He beat you, didn't he?" James hissed, eyes darkening menacingly.

"He locked Harry in a room and put bars on his window; I wouldn't put it past him," Sirius snarled, drawing his wand, having not considered the possibility of bodily harm before. He'd always assumed it was just mental, and had effectively hardened Harry's mind and spirit, something which had saved his life a number of times during his encounters with Voldemort.

Remus and Dumbledore exchanged uneasy glances. "Gentlemen," Dumbledore began, "I'm sure Vernon Dursley did no such thing, or else Harry would have told me." He paused. "Wouldn't you, Harry?"

Harry shifted, not meeting his Headmaster's gaze. "It was only a few times, and not very hard, you know. I… didn't think you should be bothered with it, since you have such more important things to worry about."

"_What?_" James demanded.

Harry didn't know why his father was making such a big deal about this. It had been years ago, after all, and apart from the malnourishment, which Harry suspected had affected his growth somewhat, it had been tolerable. He certainly hadn't turned into an insane mass-murderer, like someone else in his position might have – namely, Tom Riddle.

"Look, it was a long time ago, alright?" Harry finally snapped, a little irritated at being fussed over, even if it was his father doing so. A teenage boy could only take so much coddling, after all. "They haven't laid a hand on me in four years, and even before that, it wasn't anything serious. I'm fine. Leave it alone."

James's eyes narrowed, but he respected his son's wishes. However, that didn't stop him from turning to Dumbledore and hissing, "It is _your_ fault Harry was stuck with the Muggles in the first place. When I get my wand back…" he trailed off menacingly. Even though both men knew James didn't have a hope of defeating Dumbledore in a duel, the ancient Headmaster still dreaded the prospect. Hell seemed to have wrought many changes in his young friend, and Albus wasn't sure that was a good thing.

Meanwhile, Sirius was fuming silently, and Remus had laid a hand on Harry's shoulder an asked quietly, "Are you alright? You haven't been dwelling on the third task, have you?"

"Just dreams," Harry replied truthfully. "But I've moved on. Although Dudley has a go at me for screaming while I'm sleeping every now and then…"

Remus stared at him in concern.

"Don't worry," Harry hastily assured. "I threatened to turn him into a lobster, and he shut up nice and fast."

Remus suppressed a smile as James, Dumbledore and Sirius shot the duo questioning looks. "Good."

There was an uncomfortable silence as the five stared at each other.

James decided to break the silence.

"I still can't get over how much you look like me!" he exclaimed, effectively easing the tension in the room. "Shame about your eyes, but then, you can't have everything."

Harry beamed at his father, who winked and continued his assessment.

"You should be glad you got my hair," he continued seriously. "Your mother went into conniptions every time she had to choose an outfit to wear – said her hair didn't match anything made on Earth!"

"She should have gone to Jupiter, then," Harry remarked dryly. "I'd bet they'd have something that matched there, and besides, Ron claims he's invented a broomstick that can reach it."

Remus and Sirius laughed at the mention of Harry's friend, mainly because they could easily picture him claiming such a bizarre thing.

Harry grinned. "We were around three Veela at the time."

"That would explain it," Sirius said wisely.

"Indeed," Remus smirked. "Men have such interesting reactions to those delightful creatures. Why, Sirius himself attempted to eat an apple tree to prove his love and devotion one time."

Harry blinked. "How would that impress them?"

James grinned. "It wouldn't. In fact, they were so offended by his defacing of nature that they started chucking fireballs at him."

Harry whistled lowly. "I thought Sirius was a ladies man. That no woman could resist his attentions and undeniable good looks."

Sirius frowned. "Where'd you hear _that_?"

Harry cackled. "Remus."

The werewolf in question suddenly became very interested in the floor. "I'm going to go get Harry's trunk," he announced.

"It's not packed," Harry protested, not noticing the death glares Sirius was shooting at Remus.

"I'll take care of it," Remus promised, beating a hasty retreat from the room as Sirius began growling.

James, meanwhile, was staring at Dumbledore in bemusement. "Who is Ron? What's so funny?" He hated not understanding jokes.

"Ronald Weasley, youngest son of Arthur and Molly Weasley, best friend of your son," Dumbledore elaborated. James blinked, and then grinned.

"_Oh_. I get it now. This Ron kid takes after Arthur, I'm assuming?"

"In the emotional area, yes," Albus agreed. "He is as clueless as Arthur was at his age, although you will never find me admitting such a thing out loud."

James suddenly grinned. "Speaking of emotions, Harry, you're quite handsome, you know. I expect you're quite popular among the ladies at Hogwarts?"

_Handsome?_ Harry thought. _Well, the Tournament training did provide quite a bit of exercise, and all the yard work I've done has built me up somewhat…although you'd think my hair would cancel out any amount of handsome-ness. _Harry's hair was actually quite attractive, unbeknownst to him, for it was about shoulder-length, making it infinitely easier to tame than before. The credit for his new and improved style couldn't go to Harry, unfortunately – he would have cut it ages ago, except he hadn't had any access to scissors, thanks to the Dursleys' fear that he might stab them in their sleep.

"Sort of," Harry allowed, remembering back to the Yule ball, when a multitude of girls had taken it upon themselves to trap him into being their escort. _And of course the one girl I wanted to go with was the one who didn't ask me,_ Harry thought sardonically.

"_Sort of?_" James bellowed. "You're a Potter, boy! All Potters must have women eating out of their hands day and night! It's the law!"

Harry blinked. "Er… I'm sorry?"

"Sorry!" James scoffed. "It's not your fault, you just haven't had the proper instruction, that's all!"

Harry gave his father a hesitant smile. "I don't suppose you could teach me?"

James beamed. "Did you even have to ask? Can't have you disgracing the Potter name, now can we? Now, the first thing you have to remember is that women love attitude, so-"

At this point Remus returned with Harry's overflowing trunk, prompting Dumbledore to bring James's "teaching" to an end.

"As enlightening as this topic is," he interrupted, eyes twinkling, "I'm afraid that although we have established _who_ Harry will be living with, we have _not_ established where."

"Well, there is Grimmauld Place," Sirius began.

"Grimmauld Place?" Harry asked.

"The Black Ancestral Home," Sirius explained, lips curling in distaste. "Nasty place. Forget I mentioned it."

"Alright," Harry said uncertainly.

James, meanwhile, was thinking aloud. "It'd be nice to get out of the country for a while… but it'd mean a ton of paperwork, and that's never much fun…"

"The England manor?" Remus suggested. "After your… er… death, I believe it fell into Albus's possession until Harry turns of age, and I don't think he's touched it since."

"No, indeed," Dumbledore agreed. "The England manor has many wards and safeguards placed on it; it should be safe enough for our purposes. That is settled, then. Shall we head there now?"

"Actually, I was hoping to stop by Gringotts," James cut in. "I'm assuming that's where you put my wand after my disappearance?"

"Naturally," Dumbledore acquiesced.

James shot Sirius a grim look. "And while we're there, I have a few things to say to Minister Fudge as well. As well as get a new Auror license."

"You were an _Auror_?" Harry demanded. "Cool!"

Dumbledore smiled serenely. "Shall we be off, then?"

"_Please_, yes!" Harry exclaimed fervently.

Dumbledore laughed. "Well said, Harry. I suggest taking the Knight bus, as it is the simplest way of reaching your desired location. Once in Diagon Alley, you can easily purchase some Floo powder to reach the Potter Manor. Oh, and Sirius, _do_ stay in canine form until James has had his… talk with the Minister, won't you?"

Hope twinkled in Sirius's eyes. "Oh, I will, Albus, don't worry. Although I can't promise you what I'll do after James is finished."

Harry gave him a quizzical look.

"An unconscious Cornelius Fudge and a machete come to mind," Sirius elaborated. "I'd advise you to keep sharp objects away from me while I'm around our esteemed Minister."

Harry laughed. "I'll do my best."

"Then it seems it is time to part ways," Dumbledore concluded. "Have a good day, gentlemen. And James, do send me an owl sometime. We have a lot to talk about."

James's eyes narrowed fractionally, although he had a smile on his face. "I'll be sure to." Harry wasn't sure if his father was pleased or absolutely furious with Dumbledore. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know, for that matter.

Dumbledore Disapparated with a _pop_.

A thought suddenly occurred to Harry. "Er… dad… everyone thinks you're dead, you know. Won't you start a panic if they see you walking around Diagon Alley?"

James grinned. "That'd be a sight, wouldn't it?"

"Reminds me of the old days," Sirius reminisced. "Good times."

Harry frowned. "Seriously."

"I suspect that the public will soon learn of James's reappearance anyway," Remus said. "This is simply a more direct way of doing so. Now then, shall I call the Knight bus?"

Sirius responded by shifting into canine form.

Thrusting his wand up in the air, the traditional signal for calling the Knight Bus, Remus and the others waited patiently, and then impatiently, for the elusive vehicle to appear. After five minutes, Remus huffed in annoyance.

"Where is that blasted vehicle?"

Harry grinned. Without explanation, he carefully positioned his trunk so that it was at the edge of the sidewalk, then drew his wand and stepped backwards, purposely tripping over the trunk. As Harry fell, his wand hand flew up in the air in an attempt to brake his fall, much as it had two years earlier. Landing on the road with a thump, Harry immediately rolled back onto the pavement, narrowly avoiding being run over by a massive violet triple-decker bus.

The bus ground to a halt, the as the doors slowly opened, Harry nonchalantly got to his feet, ignoring the incredulous looks he was getting.

Of the three, James was the most shocked; partially at his son's strange behavior (he himself had done stranger, of course, but that was beside the point), and also partially the fact that he'd almost lost his son for the second time. Sirius, the most used to Harry's impulsive and often dangerous actions, merely barked in amusement and trotted forward.

"He may be as insane as I am," James whispered in awe.

Remus smiled secretively. "You have no idea."

As the Knight Bus doors slid open, a pimply wizard decked out in purple velvet sprang forwards, and upon seeing James, began stammering incoherently. Taking pity on the poor conductor, James wordlessly patted the stuttering boy on the shoulder and swept past him onto the triple-decker.

"Don't mind Stan," the driver advised them apologetically. "He gets startled mighty easily."

"No problem, Ernie," James assured the wizened old driver. "I expect I'll be getting that reaction a lot today."

Ernie looked up at these words, and seeing James Potter himself alive and standing before him, apparently not having aged a day since his death fourteen years ago, he fainted dead to the floor.

James winced. "I don't suppose you know how to drive this thing, Moony?"

"I'm sure Sirius would know," Remus replied, "but I do not have his expertise when it comes to motor vehicles."

The duo stared down at Ernie, who was still lying unconscious on the floor.

Remus blinked. "Perhaps we should revive him."

James rolled his eyes. "You have the wand, genius."

"There is no need to be rude," Remus said, somewhat miffed.

"Since when did you get so sensitive?" James demanded.

Harry decided to take the initiative, in the form of leaning over and kicking the unconscious driver in the side until he woke up.

Sirius barked appreciatively.

Ernie woke with a start, and asked blearily, "How?"

"A long story," Remus supplied. "Suffice to say, there was very dangerous magic involved, and thanks to it James Potter is with us once more."

Thankfully, Ernie wasn't exceptionally deep, and didn't inquire further. Instead, he poked Stan in the ribs, gesticulating furiously towards their passengers. Stan quickly cleared his throat and began his spiel.

"Hello! Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transportation for any stranded witch or wizard! My name is Stan Shunpike, and I will be your conductor this-"

"Thank you, that will do," Remus said curtly. "I am Remus Lupin. This is James Potter, his son Harry, and our dog Padfoot. No, his stunning resemblance to a Grim is not coincidental. As pets do not require tickets, I would therefore like three one-way tickets to Diagon Alley. I would not like a toothbrush, nor a hot chocolate, nor any other ridiculously overpriced object you attempt to sell me."

Stan was so overcome by Remus's speech that he completely forgot his typical sarcastic remark, and blankly showed them to their seats. Harry was very impressed.

Due to the extraordinary ruckus the quartet had caused while boarding the Knight bus, the other occupants of the bus were now staring curiously at their newest companions as Ernie started up the engine and peeled off into the night. Having heard some of Ernie and Remus's conversation, their fellow passengers quickly put two and two together, and came to the conclusion that James Potter was somehow miraculously alive.

As luck would have it, the majority of the bus's passengers were members of the "Journalist's Guild of England," headed to their annual journalism conference held in one of the Ministry of Magic's many meeting rooms. James therefore spent the remainder of his journey bombarded by questions concerning everything from the details of his return to his favorite Quidditch team. By the time they pulled up at Diagon Alley, Remus had developed a painful migraine, Harry was blushing crimson from overtures of love one star-struck teenage girl was lavishing upon him, and James was on the verge of throttling one particularly obnoxious reporter.

Practically flying off the bus, all three men (and one dog) breathed a sigh of relief as the purple monstrosity rounded the corner and disappeared into the night, taking the gaggle of reporters with it. Keeping their heads down, the quartet entered the Leaky Cauldron as inconspicuously as possible. This turned out to be an excellent idea, as one of the reporters who had been with them on the bus had taken a photo of James sometime during their journey, and was now waving it wildly at the patrons of the pub, who seemed enraptured by the man's words.

After tapping the brick wall with his wand in the correct place, Remus led the way into Diagon Alley, absently noting that neither James nor Sirius had set foot in the alley in over fourteen years. He did not have time to dwell on this, however, because not ten seconds later they were besieged on all sides by witches and wizards frantic to ascertain for themselves that James Potter was truly alive. An almost equally large crowd spent a great deal of time rhapsodizing over Harry's winning the Triwizard Tournament three weeks ago.

James was not pleased.

"Get the bloody hell away from me!" he bellowed, yanking his arm away from a clingy old woman, who was trying to get him to sign her false tooth. "I didn't come back from the grave just to be smothered to death by you lot!"

The crowd thinned slightly.

James's gaze narrowed. "And if someone doesn't tell me what the _hell_ my son was doing in the Triwizard Tournament, heads are going to roll!"

They had no trouble after that. What sane witch or wizard would tell a man who cheated Death itself that his son had nearly died in a tournament he wasn't supposed to be able to take part in in the first place?

Their first stop was Gringotts Wizarding bank, the beautiful, towering, white marble building in the heart of the thriving marketplace. Shoving past the golden doors, James stalked up to the nearest available goblin and snapped something impatiently. As Harry, Remus, and Padfoot rushed over to James's side, they found him arguing furiously with the teller.

"I don't care what you say, sir," the goblin snarled, "but 'James Potter' is listed as _deceased _in our directory, and unless you can produce some positive identification…"

"I _told _you," James retorted furiously. "I don't have any! For God's sake, I'd like to see _you _get sent to Hell, escape, and still have your wallet intact!"

Harry quickly thrust his vault key at the fuming goblin. "He's with me."

The goblin's eyes narrowed suspiciously as he examined the key. Then he gasped and began bowing furiously to James, who had a superior look on his face.

"My apologies, Mister Potter!" the goblin babbled. "Had we known of your sudden revivement… well, let bygones be bygones, as I believe Muggles are fond of saying! Let me just call you up a cart!"

As the teller snapped something in Gobbledegook to a passing underling, Harry, who was still holding the key out to the teller, reluctantly drew his hand back and gave his father a puzzled look.

"I was talking about the family vault, Harry, not your trust fund. We don't need a key for this," James told his son in a somewhat bewildered manner, clearly expecting him to know such things already. At that moment a goblin dashed up, gave Harry a superior smirk, and ushered the three men and one dog into the nearest side passage.

As they carefully boarded the rickety cart, James asked Harry, "You do know we have more than one vault, right?"

Harry shrugged.

James frowned. "Don't tell me no one explained how your money was being handled! What _else _don't you know?"

"Well, I only really know that you and mum were the last Potters," Harry offered, hanging on for dear life as the cart took off down the tracks at breakneck speed. "That's about it, really. Oh, and that mom had green eyes, and I look exactly like you."

James was understandably distraught at his son's severe lack of knowledge about, well, just about everything. "Surely you know more than that!"

"It's not like people around here are in the habit of telling me anything useful," Harry muttered defensively. Sirius and Remus grew suspiciously quiet.

James frowned at his two friends before beginning his impromptu history lesson, pausing every few seconds to rub his backside after a particularly painful bump from the bouncing cart. "Right, then. The first thing you have to understand is that the Potters are a very old family."

"As old as the Malfoys?" Harry asked eagerly.

"Older," James replied with no small amount of pride. Harry grinned; some new blackmail material to use against Malfoy, courtesy of James Potter! Could the day get any better?

"Anyway, as you may know, generally old families mean old money."

"How much money are we talking about?" Harry asked suspiciously.

James smirked. "Son, I could buy a Ferrari a day for the rest of my life, and it wouldn't even put a dent in how much money we have."

Anticipation mounted in Harry as the cart rolled to a halt beside an enormous unmarked vault door. The goblin driver leapt out of the cart, trotted up to the door, and expertly slid his long finger down the middle of the portal. Harry waited with baited breath as the door's intricate locks slowly unlatched, and finally the vault door swung open with a dramatic creak.

There were no mountains of gold or jewels, of course. Not even silver sickles, Harry noted with mounting disappointment. Why would his father lead him on so cruelly? The only things inside the ridiculously small passage were two doors, one of each side of the broom closet-sized room.

Noting his son's unimpressed face, James impatiently shoved past him and swung open the left door. It was amazing how fast Harry's expression could change from dull disappointment to sheer amazement.

Inside the room was… gold. The sheer volume could not be described. There were piles… no… mountains of gold, stretching from the floor to the twenty-foot-high ceiling, and occupying every possible space in the room, which had to be at least a hundred feet long. That was a _lot _of gold. Interspersed in the room was silver and copper pieces, but the gold easily outnumbered them by a thousand-fold. Needless to say, Harry was very impressed. Shocked, more like. Suddenly, the thousand galleons he'd given to the Weasley twins at the end of last year seemed a paltry amount compared to the fortune in front of him.

"You think this is something," Remus said mildly as he and Padfoot strolled into the room. "This is only the England vault. You should see the vault James has got in Bangladesh. We were swimming in gold coins – literally. Sirius actually found a piece of wood and rigged it to the wall as a diving board."

Sirius whined pitifully. James, who was busy scooping Galleons into a green velvet bag, looked up in concern.

"What's the matter, Padfoot?"

Not daring to shift to man form while so near their goblin driver, Sirius merely growled and flopped onto the floor.

Remus rolled his eyes. "When Sirius was sent to Azkaban, they removed his vault from his custody, although he still managed to access it somehow. I expect Sirius is going into one of his self-pity phases."

James scratched Sirius's ear comfortingly. "Not to worry, old friend. As soon as we get what we came for, I will personally see you freed."

Sirius snorted in disbelief.

James bopped Padfoot on his furry head. "You git, you were given a life sentence for murdering _me, _among other things. You really think Fudge is going to object when I rise from the dead to inform him of his mistake?"

Apparently satisfied, Sirius barked happily and bounded off between the mountains of gold. James, amused as ever by his best friend's antics, chuckled and returned to his gold-stuffing, joined momentarily by Harry and Remus.

After collecting a small fortune in gold, the quartet exited the room and made their way across the hall to the other wooden door. _This must be where Dad's wand is being stored, _Harry deduced.

He was correct… sort of. True enough, on a cabinet right beside the door sat James's wand, placed there by an unknown party after his untimely demise. However, the rest of the room…

Approximately half the size of the previous room, this room contained… everything. There were swords, shields, books, wands, and an assortment of things that Harry didn't recognize (some of which looked rather evil in his opinion). James, Sirius, and Remus spread out to gather items they needed, and as they faded from view, Harry, feeling rather abandoned, decided to take a look around.

Harry was particularly drawn to the far corner of the room, which held an assortment of dark artifacts that the Malfoys would kill to have. The items had clearly been neglected, however, which led Harry to reason that they were placed in this vault for safe keeping.

On an old, half torn-apart cabinet was a very old, dusty item that looked like it hadn't been touched in centuries. It appeared to be a human skull with large chunks removed from it in a very symmetrical, very precise way. Harry shuddered and moved on.

A large gilt table held an assortment of nasty looking potions, some poisoned weapons and objects, and a rather large black sword with a very life-like silver snake coiled around hilt. This sword was what had been drawing Harry towards it, which prompted Harry to cautiously step forwards and timidly poke the blade.

Harry naturally panicked when the snake's head suddenly jerked upwards and hissed at him menacingly.

.:Who dares disturb my rest:. the tiny metallic reptile bellowed in Parseltongue.

Harry gaped in astonishment. "You're _alive_? You can _talk_?"

.:It certainly seems so:. the snake hissed dryly. .:Ten points to the scar-faced child:.

Go figure. He manages to discover a sword that can communicate with humans, and it turns out to be sarcastic. What were the odds?

The snake, however, was speaking again. .:Who are you? I highly doubt a weakling like you would be capable of communicating with a being such as myself. My master was the most powerful wizard in the world, after all:.

"My name is Harry Potter," Harry said somewhat shortly. "I'm a Parselmouth. I got the ability from Voldemort… who I'm going to guess forged you, or at least ordered you made."

The snake actually seemed disgusted by the notion. .:Do not make me laugh, boy. I do not know this Voldemort you speak of, but he is but dirt compared to my maker! I serve none other than Salazar Slytherin himself:.

Harry's eyebrows shot up in shock. "You realize he's been dead for a millennium?"

The snake, despite his evident pride at having Slytherin as his master, didn't seem overly concerned with the man's demise.

.:Well then, I shall simply have to find a new master:. the snake said firmly. .:Tell me about this Voldemort fellow:.

Harry blinked owlishly. "Er… he's an evil Dark Lord bent on world domination, who despises muggleborns and half-bloods, and tortures Muggles for fun. Oh, and his eyes are red."

The snake hissed unhappily. .:I've had enough of that type to last me a lifetime. There must be another Parselmouth I can serve:.

Harry racked his brain in thought. "To tell you the truth, I'm the only other Parselmouth I know of."

The snake eyed him appraisingly. .:As I do not particularly care to spend the next decade scouring the world for Parselmouths, I do not see any other option. You don't have as much ambition as I'd like, but there is some potential in you:.

Harry blinked. "I'm not following you."

.:You are now my master:. the snake declared.

Harry gaped. "What? Look, I can't be your master! I don't even know how to use a sword! Besides, I'm in Gryffindor! You served Salazar Slytherin himself!"

.:Slytherin may have created me, but I have my own mind. You are adequately powerful for my needs, and you seem to possess a decent amount of intellect. Now, cease your whining and strap on my scabbard – you own me now:.

Reasonably certain that this was an incredibly foolish and foolhardy thing to do, Harry dutifully strapped the scabbard onto his back, pulling the collar of his jacket higher to hide it from view. This was done, of course, because Harry was sure his father would not approve in the slightest of him stealing such a clearly Dark artifact from his own vault. A wiser person than Harry would have asked permission before doing such a stupid thing, of course, but Harry was never known for his good judgment.

.:Now, Master, you claim that you do not know how to use a sword properly:. the snake said. .:I will teach you, for I am well rounded in combative techniques, and I cannot have you disgracing me:.

"Now may not be a good time," Harry protested, hearing Remus ask James where his son had got to.

.:It seems you are not entirely unintelligent:. the snake observed. .:You were certainly correct when you deduced it would not be an intelligent idea to tell your Father about me:.

This didn't sit well with Harry. "Wait a minute. If taking you is such a bad idea, then why am I doing it?"

The snake rolled its miniscule silver eyes. .:You are my master – you have no choice. Feel free to leave me behind – you'll be drawn back before you take two steps. I don't suggest you try it – I understand it's immensely painful:.

"I don't like you very much, snake," Harry informed him unhappily.

"My name is Decimare," the snake informed him. "And I am not a 'snake', as you so foolishly put it. I am the physical manifestation of the essence of the blade you see before you, created to allow my Masters to interact with me more easily:.

Harry blinked.

.:It means I look like a snake wrapped around the hilt of the blade Decimare, but in fact I am merely a part of the sword, but one that can talk:. Decimare explained irritably. .:Do try and keep up:.

"You're evil, aren't you?" Harry sighed as he turned to head towards the exit.

Decimare seemed highly amused. .:I am a piece of cold steel, Master. Despite the many enchantments placed upon me, it is my duty to serve you. Therefore, if you are 'good', so to speak, I will behave in a 'good' manner so as to assist in forwarding your goals and dreams:.

"Fine," Harry said curtly.

.:I will become silent now:. Decimare announced. .:We will reconvene when you are in a suitable place to begin your training:.

Harry groaned, but was not entirely displeased with the concept. If learning to use a sword kept this odd snake-sword thing happy, then Harry figured it was worth it. And who knew? Maybe it would even give him an advantage against Voldemort next time they crossed paths.

"Harry!" James's voice echoed across the gargantuan room. "Time to leave, son!"

Harry shoved the sword back under his cloak and hurried over to the door where his companions were waiting for him. He noticed instantly that James and Remus seemed perturbed by something.

"What's the matter?" he asked, surreptitiously checking to insure the sword was completely hidden under his jacket.

James frowned. "Gryffindor's sword isn't in its case."

"Gryffindor's sword?" Harry repeated. "What was it doing in the Potter vault in the first place?"

"The Potters were given charge of some very important magical objects, as we are well known to be prominent Light wizards," James explained, still pondering the sword's disappearance. "Do you think it was stolen?"

"Of course not," Harry said absently.

James blinked. "Why not?"

"Well, the sword's at Hogwarts, isn't it?" Harry asked impatiently, then realized his mistake.

"And you know this… how?" James demanded.

"I pulled it out of the Sorting Hat in my second year," Harry volunteered reluctantly.

Remus's face brightened considerably in understanding. "Ahh! So _that _is how you survived! I'd always wondered."

"Survived _what_?" James said in frustration.

Remus shook his head. "We will go over everything later, Prongs, you have my word. Come, let's get going. I believe we've kept our driver waiting long enough."

Without further ado, the four exited the vault, drove back up to ground level, and stepped out into the bustling alley.

"Where to now?" Harry asked.

Padfoot tugged on James's pant leg, whining pitifully.

"The Ministry of Magic!" James announced. "We'll take the Diagon Alley entrance – it's closer than the visitor's entrance."

James and Remus led the way down the alley, into a small building at the very end named the "Useless Store". No joke. Harry wondered for the zillionth time today if being dead hadn't rattled his Father's mind slightly.

They entered the tiny building to find themselves in a small room whose only furnishings were a small wooden desk, at which a bored looking woman sat. In the center of the desk was a bright blue orb; other than that, the desk was clear. James led the way forward, sliding up to the desk to give the woman a dashing smile.

"What?" she asked in an utterly bored drawl.

"We'd like to visit the Ministry of Magic," James said, somewhat put off by the woman's lack of reaction to his best smile.

The woman grunted. James took that as a yes, and reached his hand forward to settle it lightly on the blue orb. He disappeared with a pop. Remus snorted, disgusted by the lack of security the ministry was displaying, before following his friend's lead. Harry quickly grabbed Sirius's collar and did likewise.

They emerged in a huge dark-wood paneled hall, with a gargantuan peacock blue ceiling, and fireplaces lining both side walls, which Harry supposed were for Floo travel in and out of the Ministry. Down the hall the foursome strode, past a large fountain titled the "Fountain of Magical Brethren", through a large golden gateway, up a gilded lift, and through the single door at the end of the elaborately decorated hallway. Harry found it interesting to note that at no time through their entire trek were they stopped and questioned as to their intentions or destination. The Ministry security really _was _lax.

As they passed through the large ornate door into the next room, Harry noticed a small plaque hanging above the door reading: "Minister for Magic's Office". He gave his father an uncertain stare, not sure simply barging in was the right way to go about things, but James just winked and walked onwards. Harry shrugged in defeat and followed his father inside.

The door shut behind them with a clang, blocking out all sound from the outside. The room they were in was small yet ornately decorated – most likely Fudge's secretary's office. Sure enough, they immediately spotted a rather attractive woman seated at a giant mahogany desk, whose name plaque read "Ann Cline, Secretary to the Minister for Magic".

Her blond head jerked up as they approached. "What?" she asked impatiently. Apparently politeness was not a pre-requisite when getting a job in the Ministry.

"I'd like to speak to Fudge," James snapped, returning her impolite tone. "Now, if you please."

The secretary frowned as she examined her fake nails. "Minister Fudge is busy at the moment. If you leave your name and address, he can contact you at a later-"

"Look, lady," James interrupted. "Not to be rude, but if you want to keep your job, then you tell Fudge that James Potter wants to see him _now_, and if he doesn't agree to meet with me, I'll come in anyway and kick his lazy ass from here to Switzerland!"

Cline sighed and hit the magical intercom button. "Sir, I've got a James Potter here to see you. He says if you don't see him immediately, he'll do something or other to you. He sounds rather impatient."

Fudge scoffed. "Don't be a fool, Cline. James Potter has been dead for fourteen years!"

"Not according to this issue of the Daily Prophet sitting on my desk," Cline droned.

"That's impossible!" Fudge protested. "He is a fraud! Under no circumstances is he to disturb me!"

Cline removed her hand from the button. She stared at the Minister's doors situated behind her.

"I think he wants to see you," she murmured. "Then again, I don't understand a lot of the things he says. Go on in, and try not to break anything. I've got to clean his office, you know."

As Harry stared in bewilderment at the impossibly emotionless woman, James directed the group towards the Minister's door. Grinning in anticipation, James grabbed the doorknob and flung the door open wide to reveal a short, chubby man situated in a huge room at a desk much too large for him. Seeing James, he gasped, and, quite understandably, passed out.

Remus sighed and moved forward to revive the Minister as James rolled his eyes.

Once the cowardly Minister had awoken, James said quite politely, "Good day, Minister. I hope you're well."

Fudge squeaked. "You're dead!"

James blinked. "Actually, I'm quite certain I'm alive, thank you." He then proceeded to sum up his past story/location for the Minister, who listened with wide eyes and a gaping jaw. When James finished, Fudge smiled shakily.

"Well, isn't this wonderful? Our most accomplished Auror alive and well! Wonderful…" Fudge said cheerily, but if you listened carefully, you could easily catch the sarcasm. James was listening for it, but nevertheless gave the man a mock-grateful smile.

"Thank you, Minister. It is ever so good to be alive again. One does miss it. Incidentally, now that I'm alive and well, how soon will my Auror's license be renewed?"

Fudge had relaxed to the idea by now, and was therefore able to smile sincerely. "Why, for the Ministry's best Auror? As soon as you like, my boy! I'll just call in the Auror council, and I'm sure they'll be glad to renew your license."

James nodded, glowering slightly at the term 'my boy'. When he was younger, Fudge had cozied up to him in hopes of gaining the Potter family's financial and political support. No doubt he was up to the same thing once again.

A few minutes later a group of men trudged into the room, all seeming rather annoyed at being pulled from their work on such short notice. There were five altogether, and while four seemed to be Fudge's little lapdogs (judging by the paternal look the Minister was giving them), the fifth was anything but. He was in fact a very familiar face, although this was the last place Harry had expected to see him.

"Alastor Moody!" James exclaimed happily. "Never thought you'd still be here! Shouldn't you be retired by now?"

Moody smirked, clapping a hand on James's shoulder. "I had my reasons."

James nodded wisely. "I can imagine."

Meanwhile, the other four Aurors, after doing the obligatory shocked staring at James for a few minutes, quickly got to work renewing his license. Once the task was accomplished, James returned his attention to Fudge.

"Now, Minister, I have something to ask you about."

"Anything!" Fudge said oblingly.

"I want to talk about Sirius Black," James said promptly.

"Not to worry, sir," one of the Aurors announced promptly. "Black has served time in Azkaban for his crimes, and although he's currently at large, we're hot on his trail, and should recapture him shortly."

James couldn't contain his amusement. "Really? Got some good leads, then? Where is he currently hiding, if I may ask?"

The young men exchanged nervous glances, as they had clearly been exaggerating their knowledge over Black's whereabouts. "Er… he's definitely somewhere in Australia," one of the Aurors stammered uncertainly. "We've got a few likely sites picked out…"

Exasperated by the ignorance of these so-called 'Aurors', James snapped, "You have no idea where he is, so don't pretend you do."

That shut them up quickly.

"The reason I brought up Sirius," James continued, "is because he is innocent."

Fudge and his Aurors stared blankly at James.

"Black, innocent? Impossible!" Fudge denied. "Death must have addled your memory, my boy. Sirius Black is a convicted murderer! For God's sake, man, it's his fault you died in the first place!"

"No, it's not," James said patiently. "Sirius Black was not my secret keeper. He had nothing to do with my murder, and he didn't murder those thirteen Muggles either."

"That's ridiculous," Fudge stammered. "Who was your secret keeper, then, if not Black?"

"Peter Pettigrew," James said succinctly. "It was Peter Pettigrew who betrayed me, not Sirius."

"But he's dead!"

"He faked his death," James snapped. "And don't you dare tell me I'm mistaken! I know for a fact that Sirius was not our Secret Keeper, having been the one to pick the person in the first place. You have my word, gentlemen. Sirius Black did not betray me."

"Then if Black didn't kill the Potters," one Auror stammered. "Why would he murder all those Muggles?"

"He didn't," James repeated. "God, how thick are you lot? I leave for fourteen years, and everything goes down the drain!"

Fudge blinked, clearly trying to find a way to escape the situation without taking too much blame. He opted for passing the buck to someone else. "That's absolutely appalling to hear! Poor Black, innocent all these years! When I find out who is at fault for this, Mister Potter, you can be assured I will deal with them harshly…"

"Of course you will," James agreed sarcastically.

"He'll need a trial before we can declare him innocent permanently, of course," Fudge babbled. "Unfortunately, since we have no idea where the man is, there really isn't much I can do…"

_Your not getting out of this that easily_, James thought. "Then isn't it lucky that I happen to know exactly where he is!"

Fudge blanched. "How fortunate," he squeaked.

"And since the Auror's council is here anyway, why don't we have the trial now?" James continued brightly.

"But… the Wizengamot…" Fudge stuttered.

"The Wizengamot has no part in this," James informed him shortly. "If they couldn't bother giving Sirius a trial fourteen years ago, then they certainly won't have a say in the matter today."

It was a mark of how much Fudge had deteriorated over the years that he couldn't even find a suitable retort to this statement.

James turned to Alastor Moody, who was chuckling under his breath. "Moody, fetch some Veritaserum while I _find _Sirius, won't you?"

Moody nodded and slipped out the door, smirking to himself as he shook his head.

James directed an elegant bow at the Minister. "I won't be but a moment, Minister Fudge."

James slipped out of the room with Padfoot at his heels. Moody returned a few moments later, still barely suppressing a smile. The next minute, James returned dragging none other than Sirius Black himself!

"_Sirius Black!_" Fudge and his Aurors yelped. Sirius rolled his eyes.

"_Shut up!_" James shouted just as loudly. "He's innocent, remember? Lord, talk about selective memory! Now Minister, you are going to give Sirius the trial he was denied fourteen years ago. The Veritaserum, please, Moody. Thank you."

James handed the potion to Sirius, who grimaced in distaste but nonetheless downed the potion in a single gulp.

"Right then," Moody declared in his grizzled voice. "Are you Sirius Orion Black?"

"Yes."

"State your birthdate and place of birth for confirmation."

"Can we hurry this up?" Fudge cut in irritably.

Moody decided to cut straight to the chase.

"Were you the Potter's secret keeper?"

"No."

Astonished murmurs from Fudge and his cronies. It was amazing. Fourteen years of being thought a murderous villain gone by just one little word.

"Then who was?"

"Peter Pettigrew."

"Why did Potter switch to Pettigrew?"

"It was my idea; the perfect ruse. I never thought Voldemort would use a weak, talent-less thing like Pettigrew to do his dirty work. I was wrong."

"And the thirteen dead Muggles?"

"Pettigrew killed them."

"And then you killed Pettigrew?"

"Peter is a rat Animagus," Sirius snarled. "He cut off his finger, blew up the street with his wand behind his back, then transformed and sped down into the sewers, leaving me at the scene of the crime."

"So you are saying you are completely innocent of all charges?"

"Yes."

Moody paused.

"Was Pettigrew a Death Eater?"

"No, Pettigrew _is _a Death Eater. He showed up a couple of years ago, and has since rejoined Voldemort."

Moody grinned in anticipation as Fudge's face paled.

"Voldemort is dead," Fudge snapped.

"No, he was brought back to life at the end of June this year, thanks to Pettigrew."

"Impossible!" Fudge shouted. "He's lying! Arrest him!"

"Minister," one of the Aurors said timidly. "He's under Veritaserum. He _can't_ lie."

"That's right," Sirius agreed. "And I am telling you that _Voldemort is alive!_"

The Aurors started muttering to themselves, seeming rather confused as to why the Minister was so fervently denying the truth. As they muttered, it became clear that they weren't pleased at all with Fudge in the least, and were definitely planning to use Sirius's false imprisonment as a way to do something about it. Through it all Fudge sat nervously at his desk, afraid to say anything to make the situation worse.

Eventually, Moody announced the Auror Council's decision. "Firstly, Sirius Black is hereby pardoned of all charges."

Harry, James, and Remus let out a resounding cheer, but that was nothing compared to Sirius, who actually screamed in ecstasy.

"I'm _FREE!_" he bellowed joyfully, grabbing his godson and dancing around the room with him. Remus quickly stopped them.

Moody cleared his throat, and the room gradually quietened. "Thank you. Now, my second announcement concerns our beloved leader, Minister Fudge." He paused. "Actually, I think this announcement would work better in the Grand Hall. Follow me." Bemused, the occupants of room followed the limping man out of the room, down the gilded lift, and into the main hall, where a crowd quickly gathered.

Moody lifted a gnarled hand, and the Grand Hall slowly fell silent as the multitude of witches and wizards awaited the old Auror's words. The silence was then quickly dispelled as the crowd caught glimpse of Sirius Black. Hexes flew across the room as a riot broke out. It took the Aurors about five minutes to calm the crowd down, during which time Remus and Harry snuck down to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to retrieve Sirius's wand from storage. One flash of Harry's scar was all they needed to get by the giggling security witch. Once again, the Ministry's security _sucked_.

Once everything was relatively quiet, Moody cleared his throat. "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Wizarding World!"

The crowd cheered. Moody grunted in irritation.

"This morning, James Potter was miraculously brought back from the dead!"

There were whistles and more cheering as James grinned and gave a bow.

"Yes, yes, quiet down," Moody grumbled. "However, his arrival brought a few issues around, namely the fate of one Sirius Black." The crowd gasped, and all eyes were focused on Sirius, who was trying to look as innocent as possible, but failing, as he'd never been innocent a day in his life.

"James gave some startling evidence, however, and I am pleased to announce that Sirius Black has been cleared of all charges!"

The hall became deathly quiet. Sirius frowned.

"Come on," he snapped. "You all thought me a murderer for fourteen years. The least you could do is cheer."

Quite a few people gave a relieved laugh as the hall broke out in cheering once more.

Moody glared around until the applause died down. "As it turns out, the crimes Black was pinned with were actually done by Peter Pettigrew, who is not in fact dead, but currently serving his master, whom you all know as Voldemort. Which brings us to my next point: due to overwhelming evidence supporting the fact, the Ministry of Magic regrets to announce that the Dark Lord Voldemort is indeed alive and at large, despite what Minister Fudge may claim."

Fudge, unable to take it anymore, darted forwards. "Please do not panic, my friends! Voldemort has not returned! That is simply a ludicrous story concocted by Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter, and Sirius Black!"

"Which ties in nicely to my final point," Moody concluded. "The Auror's Council has determined that Cornelius Fudge is a danger to our society. He was given evidence that the Dark Lord had returned, yet instead of immediately increasing security and preparing a defense in case it were true, he dismissed it as false, and did not even bother informing the public of the possible danger they were in. Furthermore, he attempted to discredit Albus Dumbledore, simply because he was preaching truths the Minister did not want to hear."

Fudge was beet red, and would have angrily retorted, except for the fact that Sirius had helpfully placed a silencing charm on him.

"Therefore, and without further ado," Moody announced. "Minister Fudge is unfit to continue in his position as Minister for Magic. I move for a vote of no confidence in Cornelius Fudge."

As it turned out, no one really liked Fudge that much, and judging by the cheering, most thought him an incompetent bungler. Fudge, absolutely horrified, started to wave his arms furiously protest, but no one paid him the slightest attention. He was led from the hall in complete disgrace.

The only person who was not rejoicing was Harry, who, being the only child in the entire hall, was more than a little overwhelmed by what had happened. Sirius was free, Fudge was being sacked, his dad was _alive_… next thing he knew Snape was going to show up and give Gryffindor house points!

Forgetting his confusion for the moment, Harry couldn't help but laugh at the mental image of Snape in red and gold supporting Gryffindor, handing out lion-shaped marshmallows to all Harry's friends. That would be worth a thousand detentions just to see!

James, noticing his son had suddenly broken out in hysterical laughter, leaned closer and asked in concern: "You alright, Harry?"

Harry, nearly choking, gasped: "Snape… marshmallows… hahaha!"

James blinked. "On second thought, I'd rather not know." Everyone should be allowed their little oddities, James decided. His son just seemed to have a few more of them than most people.

Eventually, the purple sparks shooting from Moody's wand quietened the crowd down, and as silence finally fell, Moody began his speech. "Normally, when a Minister is impeached, a massive election would be called, money would be poured into campaigns, and the candidates would all squabble among each other over who would make the best Minister. However, desperate times call for desperate measures, and let me assure you, the Dark Lord being resurrected indeed qualifies as a desperate time."

"That may be," Amos Diggory cried out, "but that doesn't change the fact that we still need a new Minister!"

"That we do," Remus agreed, stepping forward. "What we have figured is that, since the highest ranking figures in Britain are in this hall anyway, we should call for a vote now."

"And I suppose you'll be one of the candidates?" Amos shouted scornfully. "Or maybe you were thinking of making the Potter boy Minister. It's not like age restrictions have stopped him before!"

James darkened visibly. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're referring to, Amos, but that sounded an awful lot like an insult to me." He raised his wand menacingly. Amos blanched.

"Now, James," he pleaded. "I was simply suggesting…"

"I suggest you both calm down," Sirius cut in, placing a hand on James's chest and shoving him backwards a step. "Sound good?"

James growled ominously, but kept silent. Amos simply paled further and attempted to disappear deeper into the crowd.

"Now then," Remus continued. "We want to get this decided here and now. If you would like to nominate a candidate, please step forward and present your vote to Moody, who will keep track of the nominations."

As the crowd surged forward, Harry gave his father a pleased grin. "Thanks for standing up for me."

"Don't mention it," James said absently, still glaring murderously in the direction he'd seen Amos disappear. "I've never been too good with insults directed at my family. The _nerve _of that pompous git!"

Sirius wandered over to join them, and the trio spent a happy half hour in idle chit chat as Remus and Moody took it upon themselves to coordinate the voting. About ten minutes in, Amelia Bones, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, showed up and, after sternly lecturing Remus and Moody on 'over-stepping their authority', proceeded to take control of the voting.

Once all the votes were in, Amelia glided forwards to speak to the silent hall. "The nominations have been reviewed, and as of this moment, the only person who has a decently good chance of becoming Minister of Magic is Lucius Malfoy."

Harry's jaw dropped. Beside him, he saw James and Sirius turn crimson. Even Remus looked mildly annoyed, which was quite a display of emotion for the normally stoic werewolf.

"Since _someone_ promised you we would have a new Minister before the sun sets," Bones ground out, glaring at Remus, who winced, "I suppose the best way to deal with this would be to have Mister Malfoy give an election speech. If he seems acceptable, we can proceed immediately to a vote, and hopefully have a new Minister before the day is out."

"But he's a _Death Eater_," Harry hissed to his father, who was biting his tongue to keep himself from yelling something unforgivable at Madam Bones

"Well, we'll just have to make sure he doesn't get elected, won't we?" Sirius countered with a carefree grin. _How can he be so optimistic?_ Harry thought anxiously. _We're about to elect a Death Eater for Minister! _

Lucius Malfoy, smirking victoriously at James, Sirius, Remus, and especially Harry, sauntered up to the stage to give his speech. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began solemnly. "I am more honored than words can say that you think me a suitable candidate for the illustrious position of Minister for Magic. Yet I can assure you that, with every breath in my body, I shall strive to succeed where my predecessor has failed! A new age is upon us, it is true! The Dark Lord has returned, and there is nothing we can do to change that. However, as your Minister, I shall see to it that all who threaten the peace of our world are brought to justice! You will never be lied to again!"

The room exploded in deafening cheers. Madam Bones sighed. "It seems we have a new Minister." She didn't seem overly pleased by the prospect.

"Not until I have my say!" James bellowed, shoving his way forward to the front of the stage. 'Accidentally' shoving Malfoy aside, James announced: "Ladies and Gentlemen! I think you'll all agree with me when I say that Lucius made a damn fine speech just now!"

Applause rang through the hall.

"He's a good friend of mine, you know," James continued. Sirius snorted. "Shut up, Sirius. My point is, ladies and gentlemen, that I have every confidence that Lucy will do a fantastic job as our new Minister for Magic!"

The crowd cheered again, while Malfoy's face turned an interesting shade of green at the nickname 'Lucy'. "Potter," he growled softly. "What are you trying to pull?"

"Yeah, what _is _he trying to pull?" Harry asked Sirius in worry. "He's basically promoting Malfoy for Minister! And why does everyone care so much what he says, anyway? It's not like he was Minister or anything."

Sirius laid a paternal hand on Harry's shoulder. "Back when James was in his first life, he was the heir to the Potter fortune, as well as a top notch Auror. When your dad talked, people listened."

"Unless they were Snape," Remus added. "In which case, they hexed him."

"I'm trying to create a sense of awe here, Moony," Sirius complained. "Stop undermining me in front of impressionable youngsters."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."

"Yes, yes, by all means cheer!" James shouted. The crowd quietened again. "Lucius for Minister! Before we elect him, though, I was just wondering if you all could clarify something for me." His expression turned to one of angelic innocence as his audience listened attentively. "It's just that, back before I died, I distinctly remember that Lucius Malfoy was a certified _Death Eater_."

Lucius glared at James. "I'm hurt that you would make such a claim, my _dear _friend. As you would know if you read the newspapers, I was cleared of all charges when it became I was under the Imperius curse during all my Death Eater activities."

James gave Malfoy a shocked look. "I didn't know that people under the Imperius curse could still think rationally and make independent decisions."

"They can't," Lucius snapped. "Everyone knows that."

James drove his point home. "But I could have sworn I saw you running around in Death Eater robes at Thorn Rose ordering around the Dark Lord's troops."

As the crowd erupted in furious whispering, Harry struggled to remember any mention of "Thorn Rose" from his History of Magic classes. He vaguely recalled the name referring to a battle of some sort – the largest one ever between Voldemort and the Ministry, if he remembered correctly. Thanks to the heroics of two young recruits, and the brilliant use of an enlargement spell in a never-before-seen manner, over fifty Death Eaters had been captured in one fell swoop, almost single-handedly winning the battle for the Ministry.

"What do you know about Thorn Rose?" Harry demanded of Sirius, who for some reason smirked.

"Did you ever wonder where the twins got their ton-tongue toffee idea from?" Sirius asked innocently.

"Those two recruits who used an enlargement charm against the Death Eaters?" Harry guessed wildly.

Sirius cackled. "James and I kept trying, kid, but we could _never _get a mushroom to grow that big again!"

Harry blinked. "Are you telling me _you_ were one of those two famous recruits?"

"Along with your dad, yeah," Sirius grinned. "When I told you we had some good times, I wasn't kidding."

Harry was beginning to realize why the Wizarding world was so devastated when James had been murdered fourteen years ago.

Back up on stage, Lucius seemed to realize he was losing his support. "You must have been hallucinating, my friend! Of course I'm not a Death Eater! Have I not proven through countless, selfless donations to excellent causes that I care only for the best for our world? My first priority is to my country and its people!"

"You mean to purebloods," Harry remarked dryly, unable to contain himself. As whispers broke out over his words, James gave him a discreet thumbs up.

"Then you wouldn't mind pulling up your left sleeve, would you?" James inquired pleasantly. "I seem to remember that all willing Death Eaters had the Dark Mark tattooed _somewhere _around there. If you are what you claim, surely you wouldn't mind showing us your arm?"

Lucius gave James the most deadly glare imaginable. Hissing in fury, Malfoy stalked out of the hall without another word. James grinned impishly.

"Should I take that as a _no_?"


	4. The Potter Manor

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Four - The Potter Manor

After Lucius Malfoy's disgraced departure, things wrapped up pretty quickly. Amelia Bones announced that, with their most likely candidate gone, the Wizengamot would have to convene to discuss new possibilities, and until then citizens should cross their fingers and hope for a swift decision to be reached.

Once again heroes of the day, Harry, Remus, Sirius, and James strolled happily down Diagon Alley, beaming broadly as fellow witches and wizards approached them to offer their congratulations at exposing Malfoy for the fraud he was. Or, at least, preventing him from becoming Minister. It seemed Malfoy had a lot more friends _inside _the Ministry than outside.

As they walked past Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, Florean Fortescue himself came out to personally congratulate Sirius on his freedom, James on his resurrection, Harry on his winning the Tri-wizard Tournament, and gave them all complimentary banana splits. As they dug into their splits, Harry couldn't help but notice how ecstatic Sirius looked. And he couldn't blame him! After all, if he'd been a convicted murderer who was finally pardoned after thirteen years, he'd be happy too! Especially after receiving 130,000 galleons as compensation for his time in Azkaban and on the run!

James meanwhile, was gloating about his victory over Malfoy. "Wasn't I great? I always knew the skills I developed while sucking up to teachers at school would help me someday! Bloody git… Malfoy, I mean. I'm betting he'll get a long lecture from Voldemort for his failure - serve him right, too!"

A short, curvy witch with long black hair sashayed up to Harry at this point, and without any hesitation, swooped forward and gave him a firm kiss on the lips. Just as quickly as she had appeared, she disappeared back into the crowd, with only her lipstick smears on Harry's cheeks and a small card with a telephone number she'd pressed into Harry's hand giving any indication she'd been there in the first place.

As James, Sirius, and Remus convulsed in laughter, Harry shakily wiped away the lipstick and returned to his ice-cream as nonchalantly as possible.

.:Master, you should not allow these miscreants to treat you so poorly:. Decimare hissed softly in snake-talk from the scabbard strapped to Harry's back. .:Perhaps you might allow me to teach them a lesson:.

"That's my father, godfather, and good friend you're talking about," Harry hissed as quietly as possible. Thankfully, his companions did not seem to notice that their young charge had suddenly begun hissing and spitting for no apparent reason.

.:I apologize if I affronted you, then:. the snake hissed in a completely unapologetic manner. .:When will you tell your humans about me? You need to begin training with me soon, before you kill yourself through incompetence:.

"I'm not incompetent," Harry snapped. "And don't call me Master. And as for Dad… I wasn't planning on telling him about you, to be honest. You are technically dark magic, after all, and I highly doubt I was supposed to take you. The last thing I want is for Dad to think me a sneaking thief after having known me for less than a day."

.:You realize once they find you out, they will never trust you again:.

"Don't be melodramatic," Harry groaned. "They just won't find out, is all. I can pull off keeping a simple secret."

The snake-sword made a huff of disbelief and fell silent.

Following their impromptu ice cream break, the four doggedly continued their trek down Diagon Alley, and finally arrived, exhausted, in the Leaky Cauldron, more than ready to escape the ever-growing crowd of admirers and well-wishers.

Tom the bartender appeared momentarily with a pot of Floo powder, passing it to Harry, who dutifully took a handful, and then scurried off back behind the counter. Harry didn't like Floo powder very much. Seeing as the last time he'd used it, he'd ended up in the middle of a Dark Arts store down Diagon Alley witnessing a secret meeting between a Death Eater and a twisted merchant, Harry figured he was perfectly justified in his less than stellar opinion of the green powder.

There was a long silence as the four men stared at each other.

Then Sirius said impatiently, "Are you going or not, Harry?"

Harry gave him a mildly offended look. "I don't know _where _I'm going."

James flushed. "I knew I forgot _something_. You're going to Potter's Mud Hut."

Harry gave him a disbelieving look.

"Don't ask," Sirius commented wisely.

"Right, then," Harry muttered. Stepping forward, he threw the powder into the flames, and, shaking his head, called out "Potter's Mud Hut" and zoomed out of sight.

James, Remus and Sirius drew their wands, gave one wave to the crowd who'd gathered around to watch them, and Apparated to "Potter's Mud Hut".

Now, the Potter Manor, with its sprawling emerald lawns, exquisite gardens, and sparkling cerulean lake, was in no way, shape, or form, a mud hut. In fact, in Wizarding Homes Monthly, there was not a manor, castle, or chateau in the whole of England that could compare with the utter perfection of the Potter ancestral home.

The gardens and lawns weren't the main reason why the Potter manor was so admired, however. It was the manor itself that boggled the mind. A gigantic structure of stone blocks, elegant crenellations, and soaring, spiraling towers reaching up to the heavens… some believed it to be even greater than Hogwarts itself. Although widely debated, the consensus was generally that Hogwarts was superior, but not by very much. After all, Hogwarts was one of the oldest, and _the _largest building in England, and what it lacked in elegance it certainly made up for in secret passages, intimidating stonework, and richness of history.

It was thus that when Harry, rattled greatly by his trip through the Floo network, shot out of the fireplace and sprawled out on the spotless white marble floor of the Potter Manor's entrance hall, his first thought was that this was singularly the most beautiful room he'd ever seen. For a moment he even wondered if he'd died and gone to heaven, because _no _floor could possibly be this spotless. _Although_, he reflected, struggling upright to fully survey the room, _it's a bit _too _white. I can barely see, what with the glare reflecting off my glasses._

Needless to say, Harry Potter was not the most artistically inclined individual in the world. Nevertheless, he could still appreciate fine workmanship when he saw it.

"What do you think?" James asked proudly as he, Remus, and Sirius Apparated beside the overwhelmed teenager.

"It's very white," Harry opined.

James laughed. "Sirius said the same thing. Only, when he said it, Mum cuffed him upside the head because she was trying and failing to bring more color to the room. White marble really just doesn't go with anything but more white marble."

James didn't know much about art or decorating either.

"It's good to be home," Sirius said happily, before turning and running out into the wide expanse of marble flooring and spinning round and round.

"You realize you're making yourself sick," Remus said dryly as he surveyed his friend overbalance and fall to the floor, cackling madly. Harry watched the exchange in amusement, at the same time taking in more of the entrance hall. It was a large room, about as big as Hogwarts's entrance hall, rectangular, with columns running down each side, a large door (presumably the entrance) at one end, and the other end opening up into a circular area.

Moving closer to investigate, Harry discovered a wide spiral staircase running up the wall, spiraling higher and higher, ending just below the gorgeous domed stained glass ceiling. Set at intervals were landings that led to the upper floors of the manor. The best part, however, was the massive crystalline structure hanging from the domed ceiling, composed of thousands of crystals artfully attached together in a way that somehow reflected the light to every corner of the room (which was difficult, as the room was circular, and thus had no corners, per say).

"I always liked this room," James commented mildly as he gazed up at the crystal sun catcher. He paused at Harry's far-away expression. "You alright?"

"This is _my _home," Harry said softly, watching as the sunbeams refracted off the stained glass windows to fill the room with multi-colored light. "I can't believe it."

James beamed, ruffling his son's hair affectionately. Harry stiffened, before immediately forcing himself to relax. He was _way_ too jumpy lately.

James still caught his hesitation, however. "Harry, loosen up! I'm not going to attack you, you know!"

"I know," Harry quickly reassured. "It's just that, you know, no one's ever really done that before."

James stared at him in disbelief. "With messy hair like yours? Next thing you're going to tell me you've slain a dragon!"

Harry suppressed a grin. "I only had to steal its egg, actually. Bloody difficult, what with the fire-breathing and spikes and all."

His father rolled his eyes, clearly thinking he was joking. "That was a rhetorical statement, you know."

Harry just laughed.

Remus wandered over at that point, and proposed they retire to the sitting room for some food and conversation. Sirius, naturally, blew his words completely out of proportion.

"The _sitting _room?" he howled. "The _dining _room, more like! For God's sake, if you don't feed me _now_, I'm going to bloody die of starvation! And I seriously doubt you'll be able to sleep soundly at night with _that _sort of thing on your conscience!"

Ignoring Sirius's dramatics, James led the way up the grand staircase to the third floor, where he took them through the first door to the right. They emerged in a spacious living room, which was roughly the size of the Gryffindor Common room. _Actually_, Harry thought suspiciously as the quartet sank down into familiar crimson armchairs, _this looks a great deal like the Gryffindor Common room. Almost _too _much like it…_

James proceeded to explain that since all his ancestors were Gryffindors, and the common room's design was so incredibly cool anyway, they had decided to use it for the private living room. This differed from the public living room and the business living room, of course. Harry suddenly felt very inadequate and uncivilized.

The four men sat in silence for almost five minutes before James's eyes suddenly widened; he smacked himself smartly on the head, and, with a sheepish look, clapped his hands once. There was a loud _crack_, and an instant later a female house elf popped into view, rather resembling Winky, except her dishtowel toga featured the Potter crest rather than Hogwarts's.

Upon seeing James, the house elf immediately flung herself across the room at him, nearly knocking him over by the force of her embrace. "Master James, sir! You is back! Missy was thinking and thinking and hoping and hoping, but never in her wildest dreams did she think that sir would actually be alive!"

James gently pried the hysterical elf's hands from his shirt. "Well, all that hoping seemed to have worked, Missy. I'm back for good, now."

Missy beamed through watery eyes. "How glad Missy is to see you, sir! Is sir hungry? Thirsty? Missy will bring you and your friends something! Master Sirius and Remus! How is you doing? Missy has missed you too!"

"Food would be nice, Missy," James cut in, bringing the tiny house elf back on track. "And inform the other house elves of my return while you're in the kitchens. Tell them that Sirius, Remus, and Harry will be staying with us for a while. Some longer than others," he added, glancing at his son.

Missy blinked, noticing Harry for the first time. She immediately began bowing frantically. "You sir, you is Harry Potter! You is so big! Missy has not seen you since you was a tiny baby! I is hearing things about you, sir, great things! Dobby is telling me-"

"Wait! You know Dobby?" Harry demanded, not unkindly.

"Yes sir! Dobby is Missy's cousin, sir! Of course, now that Dobby is shaming the family, I is not wanting to be related to him, but-"

"Missy, the food?" James repeated, watching in apprehension as Harry's eyes darkened at the slight against this "Dobby" character. Dobby must be a friend of Harry's. James wouldn't put it past him; they were related, after all, and James had done stranger things in his time than befriend wayward house elves.

Missy curtsied and scurried out of the room. She returned shortly with a tray of sandwiches and tea, gave a deep bow, and Apparated away. James reached across to grab the first sandwich, and, after pouring a round of tea, fixed his son with an uncompromising stare.

"Explain."

Harry blinked. "Explain what?"

"Everything," James elaborated. "What you've been doing since I took my little jaunt in the underworld."

Harry gulped, and, seeing no way out of it, began his tale.

"Well, after you and mum… uh… died, Dumbledore sent me to the Dursleys. I lived in the cupboard under the stairs, and I had fairly good marks in school. Of course, they'd have been higher if Dudley hadn't destroyed my homework all the time…"

"When did you get your Hogwarts letter?" James prodded.

"On my eleventh birthday it came in the mail. Uncle Vernon destroyed it, since he didn't want me learning about our world…"

"You mean the Dursleys didn't tell you that you were a wizard?" Remus asked in astonishment. "I knew they treated you poorly, but denying you your heritage!"

"They think magic is freakish, and figured that if they treated me like scum, they'd be able to squash the magic out of me. Course it didn't work, as about 200 letters later, Hagrid finally confronted me and told me the truth."

"You know Hagrid?" James asked in interest. "We had a few good chats in the old days. He's a lot smarter than people give him credit for."

"Speaking of which, where's my motorbike?" Sirius cut in. "I gave it to Hagrid the night you died. I wonder if he still has it?" Remus and Sirius began debating the point. James told them to shut up so Harry could continue.

"So I went to Hogwarts, where I was famous for my scar; defeating Voldemort, you know. Uh, I was sorted into Gryffindor, where I met Ron Weasley. There was also Hermione Granger, who's my best friend now, but back then she was a real goody-goody, which Ron delighted in pointing out regularly. Er… what else… I also met Draco Malfoy-"

"Slimy git," Sirius sneered. "Nearly as bad as his father."

"You kept him in line, didn't you?" James asked anxiously. "Never underestimate a Malfoy. There's no telling what dirty trick they'll pull to get ahead."

"Tell me about it," Harry snorted. "He's almost as bad as Snape."

"Professor Snape, Harry," Remus corrected instantly, the professor side of him kicking in.

James blinked in confusion, before realization dawned. "No!"

Harry sighed. "Yes. Snape is my Potions master. He hates my guts, and delights in tormenting me as much as humanly possible."

"That's it," James growled, jumping upright. "That bastard hated me, and now he's taking it out on my son? Not if I have anything to say about it! He's gone _too far!_"

"Expelliarmus," Sirius intoned, catching James's wand as Remus shoved James back down. "Calm down, Prongs. Dumbledore trusts him, and as much as we don't like it, we have to leave Snape in one piece."

"That doesn't mean I can't cause him _extreme pain_," James hissed, struggling to rise, which was difficult, as Remus was effectively pinning him to the chair.

"Actually, it does," Sirius said regretfully. "Or else he'd have been in St. Mungo's years ago."

"Fine," James humphed. "I won't kill him. For now, anyway." Only then would Remus let him go.

Harry blinked at the scene that had just played out before him. "Er, thanks for the concern?"

James just glowered at Sirius and Remus furiously.

"Right, then. I'll continue, shall I?" James grunted, and Harry took it as a yes. "So, in the first year, I also made the Quidditch team as Seeker-"

"In your first year? That's incredible!" James cheered. Then he paused. "Isn't that against school policy?"

"Not if you can fly as well as Harry can! He's even better than you, James! You have to see it to believe it!" Sirius rhapsodized.

"That's ridiculous," James scoffed. "I was offered first string Chaser on seven different teams while I was still in Hogwarts. There's no way this squirt could beat me!"

Harry grinned. "Look in the mirror, Dad. You can't be more than twenty years old yourself."

"Physically, perhaps," James replied haughtily. "I easily surpass all of you mentally."

"I tend to disagree with that statement," Remus voiced.

"Either way, once we get to Hogwarts, we can settle who the better flyer is," Harry said.

There was a long pause.

Harry blinked. "Er… you know… me or Dad? Who can fly better? We were _just _talking about it. You couldn't possibly have forgotten already!"

"Why do we have to go to Hogwarts to find out?" James finally asked.

Harry gave them a puzzled look. "You kind of need a Quidditch stadium if you want to play Quidditch…"

"Then what do you call that?" James demanded.

"Call what?" Harry asked.

"_That_," James repeated, pointing out a nearby window that overlooked the southern lawns. Sure enough, smack dab in the middle of the lawn was a largish Quidditch Pitch, complete with hoops, stands, and even a small announcer's booth.

"You didn't seriously think I could have survived this long without a personal Quidditch stadium at my beck and call!" James asked disbelievingly.

"Er…" Harry said intelligently.

"Quidditch is the essence of life!" James bellowed. "It is the glue that binds us mortals to our eternal souls!"

"Lord, not again," Sirius groaned.

James gave him a miffed expression, and stuck his tongue out at Sirius, who returned the favor. Harry, meanwhile, was having a hard time understanding how his father, who had apparently battled Death Eaters and cheated Death itself, could act so incredibly immature and childish.

Then again, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Harry was happier than he had been in a long time, and judging by his three companions' joyful expressions, they were enjoying themselves just as much as he was. Most startling was the change in Sirius's once dark and haunted eyes: they were now sparkling and full of laughter. _There's something to be said for immaturity_, Harry realized. _I don't care what Hermione says; acting childish is the greatest thing in the world_.

"Where was I?" Harry asked as the four settled down once more. "Oh yes, I made the team. And no more interruptions, please. I'm having a terrible time trying to keep track of my life story as it is without all your comments.

"Not much else happened that year, at least, nothing of much importance. Well, that isn't entirely fair… we did break the rules a few times, and rather severely, to tell the truth. We fought a mountain troll; we found a dead unicorn in the forbidden forest; we illegally kept a dragon; we-"

James at this point decided it was prudent to voice his thoughts on Harry's recounting. "WHY IN GOD'S NAME WAS THERE A TROLL IN HOGWARTS? WHAT POSSESSED YOU TO GO WITHIN A HUNDRED FEET OF IT? AND WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN THE FORBIDDEN FOREST? IT'S _FORBIDDEN_, FOR GOD'S SAKE!"

Harry gave him a slightly put out look. "You aren't one to talk, Mister 'illegally sneak into the Forbidden Forest every month, illegally turn into an Animagus, and romp around with a werewolf for several hours'!"

James opened his mouth furiously to respond, then stopped, realized he had to concede his son's point, and shut his mouth.

Then he remembered that he wasn't done yet.

"AND WHAT WERE YOU DOING KEEPING A DRAGON? THEY'RE DANGEROUS!"

"It was not!" Harry protested indignantly. "Compared to the Hungarian Horntail, it was quite tame."

_Dear God, I just sounded exactly like Hagrid_, Harry realized in horror.

"_Hungarian Horntail_?" James asked very softly, and very menacingly.

Harry winced. "Actually, let's talk about that event later, shall we?" He laughed nervously. "As for your… er… questions, our Defense professor let the troll in, and we were in the Forest because we got detention, which was entirely Hagrid's fault, might I add."

James's eyes narrowed. "Why would your Defense professor set a troll on first year students?"

Finally, an easy question! "Well, he was a Death Eater, you see-"

"WHAT?"

"-channeling the spirit of Voldemort-"

"_WHAT_?"

"And he was trying to steal the Philosophers Stone, but luckily I managed to beat him to it-"

"You're joking," James said weakly. "Tell me you're joking!"

"No, actually. Ron, Hermione and I realized someone was trying to steal the stone, so we went after it. Ron was neutralized on the giant lethal chess board, and there was only enough poison… er… potion, for one of us to get to the stone, so…"

"So you, an eleven year old boy, managed to get one of the most powerful magical items in the history of wizarding kind, before Voldemort could use it for some nefarious purpose," James summed up rather accurately. "Well, that's nonsense! I distinctly recall Albus telling me Voldemort was dead up until a couple of weeks ago!"

"Not exactly. He was just a body-less spirit leeching off one of his brainwashed supporters. So I got the Stone, held off Voldemort long enough for Dumbledore to arrive, and ended up in the hospital wing unconscious."

Harry wasn't very good at reading expressions, but he was pretty sure that his father was less than pleased by his words. "And where, pray tell, was your Headmaster during all this?"

Harry frowned in thought. "Er… London, I think. Actually, he's usually away for some reason or another whenever I…"

"Do something stupid?" Sirius suggested helpfully.

"No!" Harry snapped defensively. "Whenever I have an… adventure."

"Should I even ask why the Philosophers Stone was in Hogwarts?" James said dryly.

"Probably not," Remus advised.

"Fine," James sighed. "Then on with the story."

"Right," Harry said, getting back into his narrative. "So I was unconscious in the Hospital wing, which meant I missed the Quidditch final, causing us to lose, which sucked, but at least we won the House cup."

James frowned, mulling it over in his mind. "I suppose that's acceptable," he finally pronounced. "Although of _course _you won the Cup next year."

"Not exactly… the game was cancelled."

"Cancelled! Why?" James demanded in dismay.

"Mainly because Hermione, along with a handful of other students, was petrified right before the game. We had quite a time finding out what caused it."

"Well, what did?"

"A basilisk," Harry explained succinctly.

James's eyebrows raised in shock. "That's the _last _thing I expected to hear! How on earth did you figure it out? In my day, teachers were always trying to keep information from students to prevent rioting and mass chaos."

"Figuring out what did it was the least of our problems," Harry said. "It was certainly much easier than getting into the Chamber of Secrets."

James seemed more resigned than horrified or shocked.

Harry smirked at his expression. "It was actually a rather pleasant place, all things considered. Ron and I had out hands full, though, what with him clearing our exit while I slayed the Basilisk, rescued Ginny Weasley, and defeated another one of Voldemort's reincarnations."

_I'm having way too much fun with this, _Harry thought as his father appeared to have a heart attack.

At this point, Remus suddenly recalled his conversation with Dumbledore, when the Headmaster had been getting Remus up to date before he began teaching in Harry's third year. One of their topics of conversation had been Harry himself, and one of the points brought up was Harry's rather unique affinity with snakes.

Remus gazed sternly at Harry, who had clearly been doing his best to avoid mentioning it. "I think you ought to tell James how exactly you managed to get into the Chamber." Sirius gave him a curious look, before his mouth dropped open and he gave an "oh!" of comprehension.

Harry's blood froze. _Once Dad finds out I'm a Parselmouth, he's going to think I'm some sort of monster and hate me forever! Or even worse, he's going to think I'm going to be the next Dark Lord and then he'll try to kill me or attack me or something equally awful and… _

He cut off that line of thought abruptly. _Stop panicking_, he ordered himself sternly. _I'll tell him, and either he'll hate me, or he won't. Sirius and Remus still talk to me, so hopefully Dad will be the same._

"I'm a Parselmouth," Harry said shortly. "The chamber was built by Salazar Slytherin, so he enchanted it so that only Parselmouths could get into it."

There was a long silence as James digested the words.

"Harry, that's… amazing."

That was not what he'd been expecting to hear.

"Huh?"

James gave him a wounded look. "What? You thought I'd kick you out or something? Believe me kid, you're not the only one who's got secrets; I certainly don't begrudge you yours."

Sirius nodded supportively. "Exactly. I mean, come on! Moony's a werewolf. Did we abandon him in his hour of need?"

"No," Harry replied dryly. "You convinced him to partake in an illegal plan that, if found out, would effectively screw him over for life."

"Exactly!" Sirius agreed brightly. James and Remus just rolled their eyes and exchanged long-suffering looks.

Ignoring his friends' antics, Sirius said happily, "Let's continue with the story, shall we? It's getting to the good part soon!"

"You mean the part with you in it?" Harry laughed.

"Naturally," Sirius replied arrogantly. "While you're at it, try one of these mint humbugs. They're delicious! I can't believe no one's touched them yet!"

Harry dutifully picked up and tasted one of the emerald morsels. He immediately spat it out in disgust, coughing violently to erase the taste from his mouth.

Sirius grinned innocently. "I guess it's an acquired taste. So sorry."

"I'll bet," Harry muttered, chucking the offending object into the fire, where it exploded rather loudly. _I don't _want _to know what's in those, _Harry thought with a shudder.

The quartet finally settled down long enough for Harry to continue his story, which he proceeded to do. "My third year was unique, mainly because it was the only one in which I didn't end up nearly dying at the hands of Voldemort. The major event was that Moony became the Defense professor, and a damn good one at that."

"And?" Sirius pressed. "And?"

"Oh yeah," Harry said slowly, feigning ignorance. "And Sirius here thought it would terribly clever to break out of Azkaban, sneak into Hogwarts as a dog, and viciously attack several students and a painting. Oh, and he tried to murder me."

Sirius raised his hands defensively in the air. "I was grossly misrepresented! I was a convicted mass murderer, for God's sake! It's not my fault the Ministry interpreted my actions incorrectly!"

"Uh huh," Harry said disbelievingly. "And that would explain knifing Ron, how?"

Sirius grinned sheepishly. "I wasn't trying to kill the Weasley boy, honestly! My actions were just misinterpreted again! Same thing with the broken leg! Ron is really a decent kid, when it comes down to it. And I did apologize, you know."

James summarized the situation. "So Sirius escapes Azkaban, he and Harry repeatedly have chance encounters throughout the year, until the end where everything is revealed, right?"

"And I won the Quidditch Cup," Harry added.

James beamed with pride.

"As well as casting a particularly spectacular Patronus spell, might I add," Remus said proudly.

"Which looks exactly like Prongs," Sirius put in happily.

"Really?" James exclaimed. "That's amazing! The Patronus is even harder to cast than becoming an Animagus!"

Harry's eyes suddenly brightened. "Say…"

"Don't even bother asking, son," James said brightly. "The answer's yes. We'll start work on your Animagus form tomorrow."

Harry grinned. "Then on with the story… actually, that may be a bad idea…" For they had finally reached Harry's fourth year, which was when Harry figured everything had started going downhill.

"He's your father, he deserves to know," Remus reprimanded.

"Fine," Harry sighed. The next glorious half hour was spent describing the events of the previous year, including the Tournament, the Yule Ball, and, most importantly, the Third Task and Voldemort's rebirth. By the time he finished, the sun had sunk beyond the horizon, as had the mood in the room.

"Wow," James finally managed. "I think I'm finally starting to understand why you act the way you do. You poor kid."

"What happened, happened, Dad," Harry said uneasily. "I'm trying not to dwell on it."

"Still," James said, eyes darkening. "I can't believe Dumbledore let a _Death Eater _into Hogwarts! Good Lord, I thought he was intelligent! I'm going to kick his ass from here to Constantinople!"

"I don't think that's possible," Remus said lightly. "It's called Istanbul, now."

"That's beside the point!"

"Everyone calm down," Sirius interjected, crunching contentedly on a mint humbug. "Like Harry said, what's past is past."

James slumped over in defeat. "Fine," he muttered. "So that's all I missed, then? Pain, death, and betrayal? Glad I didn't skip out on anything _important_. Calm down, indeed." He shot a glare at Sirius, who rolled his eyes.

Remus huffed. "That is quite enough sulking! I've had enough pessimism to last me a life time! We're all alive; let's celebrate!"

"You're right!" James agreed, perking up. "Harry, you said you have a Firebolt? The stadium is lighted; you willing to give your old man a run for his money? I was known as the fastest flyer in England!"

Harry beamed. "You bet! You're going down!"

"Whoever gets to the pitch last is a rotten Horklump!" Sirius bellowed, and with that he took off for the door, James and Harry a split-second behind him, all laughing and having a grand time. Remus followed at a more sedate pace, muttering something about 'children'.

Upon reaching the pitch, and having located/summoned their brooms, it occurred to Harry that he was almost guaranteed to win, due to the simple expedient of his Firebolt being superior in every way to James's ancient Comet 260.

"Nonsense," James scoffed. "The Comet 260 is the best broom money can buy!"

"Fourteen year ago," Sirius reminded him.

"Even so!" James maintained. "It's the rider, not the broom, that makes the difference!"

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Gentlemen, mount your brooms," Remus announced, drawing out his wand. "Ready, set, go!"

At his word, the two racers shot into the air, streaking off at incredible speeds around the massive stadium. The only problem was that as skilled as James was, Harry's broom could go from 0 to 100 miles an hour in about seven seconds. Therefore twelve seconds later Harry had touched down rather gracefully back on the ground, and James was barely a quarter of the way finished. By the time James finally landed, all three men on the ground were laughing hysterically – so used were they to the break-neck speed of the Firebolt, seeing such an incredibly ancient broom in flight was just comical.

"How… what…" James gasped, unable to comprehend how much broom technology had improved in his absence.

"I believe I win," Harry said smugly.

"Maybe you had a valid point about the brooms," James conceded grudgingly.

"Maybe," Harry agreed with a grin. "You want to give it a try?"

James needed no further prodding, and within ten seconds was speeding around the pitch, nothing more than a black blur in the evening air. "YEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAA!" was all they heard as James thundered past them at speeds approaching 200 mph.

Over the next hour, Harry took his father through the finer points of the top of the line broomstick. James was clearly impressed with Harry's flying skills, even more so than with the Firebolt, and eventually asked for a demonstration. Harry, eager to impress as ever, obediently shot into the sky, performing daring loops and rolls, to Sirius, James, and Remus's cheers and applause.

Then he recalled an incident that had occurred in his first year, when, in order to catch the elusive Snitch, he'd managed to stand on his broom while in flight.

"Wicked idea!" Sirius exclaimed. "The first person to fall off has to kiss Missy!"

As could be expected, the following couple of minutes were a great deal of fun for all parties involved. Harry came out the clear winner, as he'd done it once before, he was very talented, and, of course, he was the only one out the four to play on a Quidditch team the past four years (or three, not counting last year).

Remus immediately fell off his broom. No surprise there – Remus was never any great shakes at flying. Sirius faired much better, although as he hadn't touched a broom in years, he quickly followed Remus's example and crashed. Another factor was certainly that as he'd been a Beater during his school days, his muscles were less attuned to balance and agility, and more to hitting things with a large bat. James lasted the longest of the three older men, although, like the others, his reflexes were slower due to lack of use, and he soon hit the dirt.

"Well, that was certainly entertaining," Remus said dryly, dusting himself off.

"That was so much fun!" Harry exclaimed. "We have to do that again!"

"Everyday until we get it right," James promised. "On a completely different note, son, Sirius has been going on and on about your so-called "spectacular dives", but I think he's exaggerating."

"Probably," Harry agreed.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "That was a dare, kid."

"Oh."

Getting into the spirit, Harry picked up his broom and shot up into the air, not stopping until the Marauders were tiny specks in a field of green. Without further ado, Harry twisted the broom handle downwards, and hurtled to the ground in speeds approaching 300 mph. He could only assume magic kept the G-forces from splattering him across the pitch.

He vaguely heard a whooping noise from his audience as Harry drew closer and closer to the ground. Finally, with about ten feet to go, Harry wrenched upwards with all his might, pulling up from the dive with about two feet to spare, and spiraling gracefully off down the pitch in a victory lap.

"Amazing," James gaped, not knowing what else to say. He himself had been offered a spot on the English National side, and he knew without a doubt that, had Harry shown them that dive, they would have taken his son over him in a heartbeat. Of course, together he and Harry would have devastated the competition, but that was beside the point.

"So, what do you think?" Harry asked hesitantly as he dismounted.

"Terrible," James sniffed. "Absolutely appalling."

Harry's eyes widened in hurt.

"I'm joking," James grinned. "That was bloody fantastic! Forget about school, son, I'm signing you on to the Wimbourne Wasps right now!"

Harry grinned happily as his father gave him a delighted hug.

"It's rather late," Remus frowned, glancing at his watch. "We would do well to turn in."

"Bedtime," James agreed.

"Says who?" Harry asked impishly.

James laughed. "Your father, that's who. Bed! Now!"

"Fine," Harry huffed. "Show me to my dungeon, Father dear."

Considering James's Animagus form was in the deer family, Harry's words only took a moment to sink in before Sirius and Remus cracked up. James gave the trio a blank look, before comprehension dawned. Growling ferociously at his son, James leapt towards Harry with a howl, who dodged him and took off towards the house.

The chase that followed was one of the best ever. Harry led the three men on a merry chase around the huge Potter estate. It only ended when Harry, completely exhausted, had a brainwave. He gave the trio the slip, and dashed into the kitchens, where it didn't take much work to convince the house elves to help him out. Therefore when James, Remus, and Sirius dashed into the room, they were met with a hail of cakes, pies, flans, and assorted pastries.

As Harry collapsed to the floor in hysterical laughter, he really couldn't imagine life getting better than it already was.


	5. The Tip of the Iceberg

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Five -The Tip of the Iceberg

After a disgruntled Missy had magicked the quartet clean, they finally agreed to call it a night. James led the way through a series of grandiose halls and corridors, up the spiraling staircase, and onto the sixth floor, which housed the sleeping quarters. In this wing were a variety of guest rooms, ranging from simple to mind-bogglingly ornate, as well as the Master bedroom, which was located at the very end of the hall.

Sirius and Remus, having spent many a night at the Manor, said their goodnights and made their way to their favorite guest rooms, leaving James alone with Harry.

"Now," James said quietly as they padded down the corridor. "What you have to remember is that throughout history, the first-born male child, the heir, was considered the most important person in the household, aside from the patriarch, of course. So don't be alarmed if your rooms are rather… er… fancier than normal, alright?"

James led Harry to a set of intricately carved wooden double-doors, which were very old, and judging by the encrusted gems and golden edging, obviously very expensive. Harry, feeling a sense of foreboding, glanced uneasily at his father. James simply grinned and flung the doors open.

To put it mildly, the room was _huge_. There had to be enough space to fit at least fifty people comfortably in the room, not including the space taken up by the King-size bed, couches, fireplace, bookshelves, and various other decorations. There was even a balcony overlooking the southern lawns at the far wall.

"Wow," Harry gaped. Then he shook his head. "But I can't stay here… it's too-"

"Is this another of those self-deprecating moments?" James demanded. "You may not have grown up in the best environment, Harry, but now that I'm alive and kicking, it's about time you learned your place. You're a Potter! This is your room by right! And don't you dare deny it!"

Harry winced. "But it's so big…"

James glared.

"Right!" Harry quickly amended. "I deserve the best, I know! It's just… wow…" Harry tried to look unaffected, but inside he was floating. His very own room, in his very own house! For the first time in his life, he had something to call home. It was not an entirely unpleasant feeling.

James smiled. "Your stuff's in the closet, I believe. If not, give the elves a shout, and they'll bring it up for you. Goodnight Harry, sleep well." He ruffled Harry's hair affectionately and slipped out of the room. Harry watched him leave, smiling inwardly.

Then he heard a strange hissing noise, coming no doubt from that strange sword he'd picked up. Harry quickly shed his jacket, unbuckled the sword, and drew it from its scabbard. The ebony blade glittered brightly in the moonlight.

.:I see you are finally alone, Master:.

"Don't call me Master," Harry sighed.

.:Of course, Master:. Decimare hissed, ignoring Harry completely. Harry briefly considered chucking the idiotic sword out the window; he'd had tried a million times to get Dobby to stop addressing him as Master, and if this sword was anywhere near as difficult as the house elf, Harry would not be held accountable for his actions.

.:Master, are you ready to begin your training:.

"Well, yes, but not now," Harry said.

.:Why not now:. the snake demanded.

"It's eleven in the evening!" Harry exclaimed. "I need to sleep!"

.:And you will sleep:. Decimare agreed. .:Right after you finish training:.

_Why do I even bother? _Harry thought miserably.

.:Now, follow my instructions carefully, or risk hurting yourself very badly. Grasp me firmly in your right hand. Now, jab forward:.

Harry jabbed the sword forward as instructed, and successfully massacred an innocent coffee table.

.:Ack! Watch it! You'll dull the blade if you swing me around like that! Control:.

After an hour of wildly swinging the sword around, and nearly bringing a bookcase down on top of his head, Harry sheathed the sword with a relieved sigh as Decimare informed him that he was finished. After stashing the sword under the bed, and making a decent attempt at cleaning up the room, Harry exhaustedly pulled on his pajamas, clambered up onto the bed, and crawled his way into the center of the massive feather mattress.

Harry was so tired that he completely forgot the event that occurred every time he went to sleep…

.:Dream:.

A tall man stood in the center of a large clearing, crimson eyes glittering coldly in the warm evening air. Directly in front of him cowered a small, pitiful looking figure with watery eyes and a pointed nose.

_I wonder what they're up to now?_ Harry thought in interest as he moved forward to listen.

"It had better be good news you bring, Wormtail," Voldemort was saying. "Lucius's failed attempt at becoming Minister has made me rather… put out."

"Master… that is… I mean…" Peter stammered.

Voldemort's eyes narrowed. "It's a funny thing, Peter. According to Lucius, in between his screams of anguish, he told me that yesterday James Potter was spotted in the Ministry of Magic itself, in clear view of just about half the population of Britain. How is it, then, that you could not locate him and kill him?"

"Well, you see…"

"Because it seems to me," Voldemort continued silkily, "that _everyone in England but you _has located James Potter by now. I am not pleased, Wormtail."

"I couldn't… that is, I didn't know where he…"

"I don't want your excuses, rat!" Voldemort bellowed. "You are the definition of useless! Thanks to your ineptitude, James Potter is now safely out of our reach, and he's taken his god-forsaken son with him!"

"I'm sorry," Wormtail offered, running out of excuses. Not that it would have mattered had he had them, anyway.

For the first time a smile – albeit a twisted and malicious one – graced the Dark Lord's face. "At least the evening hasn't been a complete waste, Wormtail."

"Master?"

"I still get to torture you, don't I?" Voldemort cackled maniacally. "Crucio!"

.:End Dream:.

Harry woke up in a state of absolute agony. His scar was searing in pain, and he could barely see. The pain faded quickly, however, and once Harry had regained the ability to move, he proceeded to curse Voldemort most vehemently for putting him through such torment. He ran a quick mental tally at how many such visions he'd experienced, along with their accompanying pain, and figured the number was somewhere up in the high thirties. Harry winced at the thought and collapsed back onto the mattress.

Unfortunately, it appeared that unlike the Dursleys, whose only reaction to Harry's screams was to grunt in disgust and pull a pillow over their heads, his newest housemates weren't quite as indifferent.

James, Sirius, and Remus burst into the room and sprinted to Harry's side, all looking vaguely panicked and unsure of what was going on. That was on overstatement, actually – Sirius, having contacted Harry many times after the Third Task incident, knew about Harry's visions, as well as his nightmares, and thus was marginally less disturbed than the other two.

"Harry, are you alright? You were screaming! I thought you were dying!" James stammered, pale as a ghost. He was cut off, however, by Sirius, who was staring at Harry piercingly.

"That was one of your visions, wasn't it?" he demanded.

Harry nodded.

Sirius gave him a grim look. "What happened?"

"I was in a clearing, and-"

"Visions? What visions?" James cut in, completely confused.

"We have some sort of mental link," Harry explained. "I don't really understand it – even Dumbledore doesn't – but it somehow let's me see into his mind. That's only sometimes, though, and I don't know what triggers them."

"Well, is there some sort of pattern?" James demanded.

"I don't know," Harry confessed. "I mean, at first it was just vague feelings that Voldemort was angry, and now I'm getting visions of what he's doing…" Even that wasn't the complete truth – he wasn't just getting visions of Voldemort, although for a long while that had been the norm. Harry still remembered that strange vision he'd had of Frank Bryce, the old Muggle gardener who'd run afoul of Voldemort a year previously.

The three men sat still, sorting this information out. As they stared blankly into the night, Harry felt his scar twinge painfully, and winced.

Unfortunately, James noticed. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, it's nothing," Harry hastened to assure him. "It's just… when I get the visions, I'm linked to Voldemort, and when he casts spells, they tend to, well, affect me to. Through my scar, I think. It isn't overwhelming, it just really hurts at times."

"You never told me that," Sirius snapped. "Why didn't you tell me that?"

"I didn't want you to worry!" Harry said instantly. Sirius jumped up angrily. "Look, you see what I mean? You're worrying!"

"It's my _job _to worry, Harry!" Sirius bellowed. "You don't deserve to be hurt in any way, you hear me?"

"What would you call my life, then?" Harry said morosely. "My entire life, people have died because of me. Mom. Cedric. Bertha Jorkins. Mr. Crouch. A little pain doesn't bother me. I deserve it." He knew he was being irrational. He also knew that he didn't care, because as silly as it was, he truly did feel that way at times.

James seemed quite distraught by the whole affair. "Harry, I thought we'd already gone over this. _IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT! IT'S VOLDEMORT'S FAULT! STOP BLAMING YOURSELF!_ And you do not deserve the pain! No one does, except What's-his-face, of course. Do we understand each other?"

Harry flinched. "Yeah, we understand each other. I'm sorry, self pity moment."

James rolled his eyes and hugged Harry. "Just stop being so negative," he advised. "It sucks the fun out of life! How can you prank people and tell jokes when you're moping around all the time?"

"So says the man who managed to lock himself in a room for two entire weeks moping over Lily Evans," Remus said dryly. 

James huffed. "But seriously, Harry, there must be some way we can control the visions."

"If there was, Dumbledore would have told me," Harry said.

"What about Occlumancy?" Sirius suggested.

"Hey, that could work!" James agreed.

"What's Occlu-thingy?" Harry asked.

"Closing your mind to external forces," Remus explained. "It is the counter to Legilimancy, which is rather like Muggle mind-reading, although a much more complex form, of course."

"Still," Harry said. "I don't know if I want them to stop. I mean, I learned tonight that Voldemort knows Dad is alive, and wants him dead-"

"You might have told us sooner," James reprimanded.

"Oh yeah…" Harry winced.

"Well, that's fair enough," Remus opined. "If you wish to continue with the visions, we certainly won't stop you."

"We won't?" Sirius asked, disappointed.

"No," Remus maintained. "Not until Harry wants us to."

"I wish I hadn't switched secret keepers," James muttered. "Then we wouldn't have to be having this conversation."

"Don't be a fool," Remus said severely. "If you hadn't switched secret keepers, Voldemort would have tortured Sirius for information, found you anyway, and having altered the time line so drastically, would have probably killed your entire family and gone on to conquer the world."

"You think so?" James asked in astonishment.

"I do," Remus agreed. "I also think that it is three in the morning, and we all need to go to sleep."

"He has got a point," James admitted reluctantly. "Sleep well, Harry. And no more visions!"

"I'll do my best," Harry promised with a grin.

Remus gave Harry a nod and left, followed by James, whose parting words were something along the lines of: if you ever keep important things from me again, then by God you won't even want to know the consequences.

Finally, only Sirius was left in the room. Harry's only family through the toughest time of his life. God, how could he have survived the last year without Sirius? Sirius sat down beside his Godson, and absently smoothed his bed sheets as gazed out the window into the twinkling night sky.

"I can't imagine what you're feeling right now, Harry," he finally said. "James alive; it's all happened so fast, like a dream come true. But you seem happy, and rightfully so; James sure is something, isn't he? I imagine now that he's back, you two will have a grand time-"

"Sirius," Harry interrupted, smiling slightly. "Are you worried that I'll forget about you now that Dad's back?"

Sirius muttered something incomprehensible.

"Aw, don't worry, you're my Godfather. I could never forget you. How could I?"

Sirius grinned sheepishly. "Well, I suppose I was just being stupid, thinking you could forget me. Who can forget the great Sirius Black? After all, I'm just so-"

"-talkative?" Harry put in pointedly. Sirius immediately shut up, although he was smiling.

"Yeah, that too. Man, I'm glad James is back. I suppose you're glad too, eh? Well, kiddo, night. And next time you have a problem, _tell me_. How in God's name am I supposed to protect you if I don't know what's going on?" On that note, Sirius gave his godson a hug, and slipped out through the door.

As Harry drifted off to sleep, he reflected upon Sirius's last thoughts. Was he glad that his father was alive? Harry smiled sleepily. Glad didn't even touch the tip of the iceberg.

.:The next day:.

A cold wave of… _something_ jolted Harry from his peaceful slumber. He groaned and grabbed his glasses from the bedside table. The room came into focus. Standing in front of him were James and Sirius, both cackling madly, and Sirius holding an incriminating empty bucket. It seemed Sirius had dumped a bucket of water on his head, and judging by his father's amused expression, it had been a joint effort. Harry sighed.

"The Ministry can't track magic in this house, right?"

"Well, not exactly," James admitted, rather confused. "They can tell magic's being done, of course, but they don't know who is actually performing it."

Harry smirked evilly. "How unlucky for you, then. Locomotor Mortis!"

Both men squeaked in shock as their legs snapped together, causing them to overbalance and tumble to the floor. Harry complemented the leg-locker curse with an Expelliarmus, depriving the two highly disgruntled men of their wands.

"You know, Padfoot, it's pretty sad that an underage wizard managed to render two of the Marauders helpless in under ten seconds," James said conversationally.

"I don't enjoy being flooded so early in the morning," Harry informed them sternly. "Now, do you two promise to never dump water on me in an attempt to wake me up again?"

The duo looked at each other. James gave a helpless shrug.

Sirius struggled for a bit, and then gave into bitter defeat. "Fine. Now let us up." Harry flicked his wand, dispelling the jinx, and tossed back the wands to their respective owners.

His dignity restored, James was now gazing at Harry with distinct pride. "That was a really good bit of spell work! Where'd you learn to duel so fast?"

Harry shrugged. "Dueling with the Dark Lord can make you a bit jumpy."

"Fair enough," James conceded after a moment of deliberation. "Anyway, the reason we… er… woke you up was that we're going to start teaching you the Animagus transformation today, so if you want to get some day clothes on?"

Harry obediently grabbed some random garments out of his trunk and slipped into the adjoining bathroom, where he proceeded to get himself completely confused trying to figure out how to turn on the shower. He felt he was justified in his confusion – the bloody thing had twenty six knobs, after all!

Following his shower, and whilst attempting and failing to comb his hair, Harry reflected on the direction his life was taking. Things seemed to finally be falling into place – Voldemort was intent on killing him, and if Harry could learn to become an Animagus, so much the better for him! Couple that with this new sword-training thing, and he might stand a chance against the Dark Lord after all!

Now dressed, Harry rejoined James and Sirius in his bedroom, and they made short work of driving him absolutely bonkers with insane jokes and imitations as they journeyed to Remus's room.

"Okay, so two cows are standing in a field," James said happily as they moved down the long corridor. "One cow looks at the other and says, 'Have you heard about that new outbreak of mad cow disease?' The other says 'Yes'. The first says, 'Well, aren't you worried?' The second says, 'Why should I be? I'm a duck!'"

Harry and Sirius suppressed groans.

"What?" he demanded. "It's funny!"

"I get it," Remus offered, stepping out of his room into the hallway. "Shall we?"

The quartet made their way down the hall, down the spiral staircase to the fourth floor, through a concealed doorway, and down a long steep stone staircase, which, judging by its length, seemed to descend deep under the mansion.

As they walked, Sirius remarked, "This passage has been here ever since the manor was built in the 1600's. It's been inaccessible for the past 300 years, as it somehow hid itself, but James and I stumbled across it the summer before second year. Since no one knew about it, it seemed the ideal place to work on the Animagus transformation."

After a short walk, the corridor opened into a medium sized stone room, rather plain looking save for the odd runes set at apparently random intervals on the walls. The walls themselves were covered in shelves, holding potions, parchment, and other odds and ends. In the center of the room was a gigantic pile of parchment, and off to the side was an empty cauldron, which seemed to have been there for quite sometime, judging by the cobwebs. James was staring at the pile of parchment fondly.

"What's with the runes?" Harry asked.

"Obscures our magical signatures," Sirius explained. "Tricky bit of magic; took nearly two days to cast."

"Aside from being a great place to practice the Animagus transformation, this was also our experiment room," James said. "That pile of parchment is our attempt to create the Marauder's Map. You would not believe how insanely complicated that stupid map was."

"Yeah," Sirius agreed, "but it was dead useful."

"Especially for sneaking around at night," Remus amended.

Sirius grinned. "Not that you would do such a thing, of course."

Remus was shocked. "I did so!"

"Did not!" James added helpfully. Remus whirled on James.

"Did so!"

"Did not!"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Alright Moony, we admit you always snuck around at night, okay? You were the King of sneaking around. Happy? Now, could you two stop your childish argument?"

Suddenly, Sirius's eyes widened, and he raised his fist and bashed himself repeatedly in the head, screaming, "NOOOOOOOOOO!" James looked bemusedly at Remus, who shrugged.

"Sirius?" James asked tentatively. Sirius stopped hitting himself, and looked up at James with sorrowful eyes.

"I - I - I called your argument childish. That implies that I'm an- an-"

"An adult?" Harry added in helpfully.

"Yes!" Sirius cried, bursting into tears. "The shame! Oh, the shame!"

Harry was now extremely confused.

James rolled his eyes. "Just ignore him. I know I do."

"Hey!"


	6. The Inner Beast

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Six - The Inner Beast

"Sorry, but you were asking for it," James pointed out.

"Whatever," Sirius grumbled, looking distinctly put out. "Can we move this along? I'm hungry."

"Certainly," Remus replied curtly. "Let's begin. James, if you would give the explanation? It was, after all, your idea."

James stepped forward and cleared his throat importantly. Harry grinned, eager for the lesson to begin. Finally he would follow his father's steps to Animagus-hood!

"Right then. Now, as you know, it is widely believed that becoming an Animagus is extremely difficult, bordering on the impossible. This is one of those times that the common belief is right - we almost gave up several times during our attempts. It's that tough. There are many different aspects that must all be completed for the transformation to work. The first step is to figure out what animal you'll become. This is done through a simple, yet dangerous process."

Remus now took over, gesturing to the rusty cauldron on the floor. "To learn which animal you will become, you must drink the_ Animalis Facies_ potion. Once you drink it, you slip into a kind of trance. Depending on various factors, a certain amount of time will pass before you view your prospective form. The trance generally lasts from five minutes to an hour, and it's probably the easiest part of the whole process."

Harry was unsure about this whole potion-trance thing. He frowned. "Then if it's so easy, why is it dangerous?" Remus smiled.

"If the potion is brewed wrong, when it is taken, the drinker goes into trance… and never wakes up from it." Harry grimaced. "Yes, it is a rather horrid prospect, but we took great care to insure that our potion was perfect."

"Yeah," Sirius bragged, "how could it not be? I made it!"

Remus winced. "I don't know what we were thinking."

"Hey!" Sirius exclaimed. He opened his mouth to tell off Remus, but was cut off by James, who seemed to be the only one focused on the task. For that, Harry was grateful.

"If I remember correctly," James said, "we still have some of the potion around here somewhere." James suddenly ducked as Sirius, who had been rummaging through the shelves, chucked a box at him. Luckily Harry's Seeker reflexes enabled him to catch the box before it smashed on the ground.

"Whoops," Sirius said cheekily. James glared at him, and Sirius gave him an innocent smile.

Harry carefully opened the plain wooden box. Inside was a cracked glass vial, which held a small amount of turquoise liquid, presumably the _Animalis Facies_ potion. Sirius grinned triumphantly.

"James wanted to get rid of that, you know. Dispose of the evidence. Lucky I kept it, or else this would take a whole lot longer. That potion takes over five months to brew."

James rolled his eyes. "I didn't want to get rid of it, you did!"

Sirius frowned. "Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Actually, if I remember correctly, it was Peter who wanted to dispose of it," Remus said quietly. Sirius and James immediately frowned darkly at the mention of their former friend.

Harry sensed the unease. "Can I drink this now?"

The three men snapped out of their trance, and quickly found seats around the room, leaving Harry standing in the middle holding the vial.

James grinned at his son. "Go ahead, take a drink. And don't worry if it tastes a bit odd…"

Giving his father a worried look, Harry carefully unstoppered the bottle, and downed the contents in order to save his taste buds whatever horrors the potion would bring. Sure enough, it tasted absolutely vile. "What's in this?" he demanded.

James smirked. "We couldn't get a hold of an ingredient, so we used frog liver instead."

Harry gagged. "Frog liv-"

He got no further into his exclamation, as he had collapsed on the floor midsentence.

.:Trance:.

It was white. 'It' being everything. Only Harry himself was colored. Everything else was just white. Weird. _I must be in the trance_, Harry realized. If so, then he was supposed to wait until he saw his Animagus form. If he even had an Animagus form.

After about five minutes, no brainwave had come, so Harry carefully sat down on the white floor. Well, since this place seemed to have no top, bottom, beginning, or end, he probably wasn't actually sitting on the floor… _Stop confusing yourself_, Harry told himself firmly.

Some time later - Harry wasn't sure how long - a shape appeared in the distance. As it moved closer and closer, Harry was delighted to discover that the thing had _wings_. Once it was around ten feet away, Harry recognized it as a peregrine falcon! A falcon!

_Now this is cool_, Harry thought exultantly as he watched the graceful bird soar across the blank sky. _I'll be able to fly! Huzzah!_

Just as suddenly as the trance had begun, however, it now ended just as quickly, and Harry watched with slight regret as the peaceful emptiness faded from view.

.:End Trance:.

Harry opened his eyes to see his three friends staring at him in anticipation. Just to annoy them, he took his time, slowly sitting up, giving a massive yawn, and stretching his arms upwards like a feline. Eventually Sirius, with his ridiculously short attention span, broke the silence.

"So, what are you?" he asked eagerly. "You're a dog like me, aren't you? Runs in the family!"

"You git, he's not related to you," James reprimanded. "Harry, what's wrong?"

Harry had decided that in order to get his guardians back for that nasty prank they'd pulled this morning, he'd have a bit of fun with them. He hung his head gloomily and did his best to look like a whipped dog. "Nothing. Nothing came."

Remus and James's eyes widened in shock and sympathy, and they immediately began protesting that there must have been some mistake, that the potion was out of date, etc. Harry glanced over at Sirius, who was shaking his head and smiling.

_He knows I'm lying, _Harry realized. _Not surprising, assuming Dad was right when he said Sirius's been telling lies since the day he was born. _

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Nice try, kid, you almost fooled me, but you can't fool the Master!"

James and Remus looked extremely puzzled by this.

"I was joking," Harry explained, to their relief. "I did, in fact, see an animal in my trance, and it was…"

Harry paused dramatically. Apparently he waited a bit to long, because James cleared his throat pointedly.

"Right then. I am a… peregrine falcon!"

Sirius and Remus looked suitably impressed, while James said somewhat enviously, "A falcon? That means you can fly without a broom! Oooh, you are sooo lucky!" He looked a bit jealous, but beamed proudly at his son all the same. Under all the praise, Harry couldn't help but feel proud, even though he hadn't actually done much.

Harry turned to his father. "So dad, what comes next?"

James grinned. "Now you become the animal."

Harry waited for him to continue, but he didn't. "How?" he eventually prodded.

"What?" James blinked. "Oh! How! Ha ha ha. Good question. Er… Remmie, you want to take this one?"

Remus smiled tolerantly. "Your father wants me to answer this because he has no idea how to explain it, Harry."

"That's not true!"

Remus sighed. "Then explain, if you're so clever, Prongs."

James frowned. "Fine! I will! The next stage is a very difficult step. Well actually, it's the last step. There only really are two steps."

"Okay…"

"In order to become your animal, you have to learn how to manipulate your body. The transformation is more a state of mind than anything else, but a very difficult state of mind to attain. Firstly, you need to put down your wand."

Harry looked at him in surprise. "Why?"

"The transformation is done without a wand. Have you ever seen Padfoot transform with a wand? He didn't even have a wand until yesterday! It's done wand-less, which, believe me, is very difficult, but learnable nonetheless."

Harry shrugged, and placed his wand into his pocket. James smiled.

"Good! Now, I want you to say _Transformus Animagus_ and concentrate as hard as you can on your falcon. Eventually, you won't have to use the words at all. They're just used for focusing."

"Transformus Animagus!" Harry cried. As could be expected, nothing happened. "Alright," Harry said crossly, "why didn't anything happen?"

Sirius shook his head. "Leave it to Prongs to teach you wrong. One of the reasons why the transformation is so hard is because you have to have a high level of control over your magical power. That is why most people first try the transformation when they are thirty or forty. You have a lot more control then."

Harry gaped. "Then how did three fifteen year olds manage it?"

"Simple. We practiced. All summer, all winter. Every chance we got, for three years, until we had it down pat. Ever wonder why the Marauders were some of the highest ranked academics in the school, even though we got into trouble every second day? It's because when we weren't pranking people, we were studying. Not schoolwork, but our own choices. Useful spells."

"Like what?"

"Like stuff that will actually be useful in the real world. I highly doubt Death Eaters will be very intimidated if you transfigure their match into a needle. Or charm their beard pink. Although, based on Professor Slughorn's reaction when we tried it on him…"

"Point taken."

"Indeed. That's the only reason James got Head Boy, because of his marks. Otherwise he would've been booted out years ago. We all would've."

"So…" Harry said. "What I need is more control. I can do that."

"All it takes is practice," Sirius repeated. "Until you get a reasonable amount, you'll be unable to completely transform, though you may be able to change certain parts of your body. You can try it now. Say the incantation, and think about becoming a falcon. Only… you'll have to concentrate a bit harder than before."

Harry was doubtful, but decided not to argue. He concentrated on the falcon in his mind. He imagined himself being the falcon, soaring through the air, the wind flowing through his feathers. Then his skin felt itchy. He opened his eyes, and was shocked to see that his skin was now feathered!

Harry was horrified. "Was this supposed to happen?" he demanded.

To his unease, the three men appeared to be completely shocked. Finally, James stammered out, "It took us six months to accomplish what you just did! Kid, with more practice you could easily become an Animagus! Maybe by the end of the summer!"

"Really?" Harry asked excitedly.

"No," Sirius said.

"Oh," Harry muttered.

"But you've got a shot for Christmas."

"Yay!"


	7. Rat on the Run

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Seven - Rat on the Run

Upon his spectacular success with the Animagus transformation, and the wonderful news that he would be able to fully transform by Christmas, Harry abandoned the secret laboratory in favour of a hearty breakfast. As he sat wolfing down a mountain of buttermilk pancakes smothered in maple syrup, Remus, Sirius, and James had a grand time entertaining him with every funny story they could recall from their youth. A side effect of the transformation appeared to be a massive drain of energy, energy which could be replenished by either food or sleep, although Remus promised that the energy drain would be less as Harry practiced more.

James eyed his son in amusement as he pushed his now-empty plate aside and turned on an innocent apple strudel with a feral gleam in his emerald eyes. "I take it you're enjoying the food."

"It's delicious!" he exclaimed.

"All the food that Kyki makes is a guaranteed slice of heaven," Sirius agreed. "His cherry cheesecake… I'm drooling just thinking about it…"

Missy the house elf suddenly popped into the room. "Is sirs wanting anything else? Kyki is wondering if he is going to be cooking any more now?"

Sirius took a quick poll of the table. "We're good. Unless you happen to have some cheesecake on you?" His hopeful expression nearly made Harry choke on his strudel as he laughed.

Missy frowned. "Cheesecake is bad for you, sir."

"Tell Kyki to make some cherry cheesecake for lunch, would you?" James requested, having not been listening to a word the house elf was saying.

"Sir, you knows that cheese cake is high in fat!" Out of the blue, Missy suddenly let out a high-pitched squeal of horror. "Sir! Your hair, sir! It is not combed!"

James grimaced. "Aww, come on, Missy, you know it doesn't make a difference whether I brush it or not…" Clucking her tongue in distress, Missy ignored her master completely, pulling a comb out of her towel/toga and, with a battle cry, viciously attacked James's hair. "Owww!" James protested eloquently, but it was all for nought. When he continued to struggle, Missy snapped her fingers, and a set of conjured ropes appeared out of nowhere and bound a struggling James to his chair. From there, she proceeded to apply large amounts of gel to his hair in an attempt to flatten it. All in all, it was a terrifying sight to behold.

Harry glanced uncertainly at Sirius; in his past experience with house elves, they never went against their master's wishes. As far as he knew, the enchantments of their kind forced them to do their master's bidding. _Is Missy allowed to do that? _he wondered apprehensively.

"Sirius, shouldn't Missy be doing what dad ordered?" he repeated aloud, realizing that his friends could not, in fact, read his mind.

Sirius, who was ravenously attacking a large pile of bacon, swallowed a particularly large gulp, and turned to his godson in confusion. "What's that again?" Sighing, Harry pointed to where his father was tied to a chair, yelping every so often as Missy got too enthusiastic with her scissors.

Sirius blinked. "Oh, that. Well, James grew up in this house, right? Missy was his personal caretaker. It was her job, and still is, to make sure he's taken care of."

Harry growled in frustration. "Yeah, but he's her master! Shouldn't she listen to him!" _It's impossible to get a straight answer around here! _he thought furiously.

"Well, yeah, technically, but…"

"Ignore Sirius, Harry," Remus interrupted smoothly. "Sirius, eat." Sirius ate. "Missy isn't following James's orders because he doesn't really mean them. House elves don't always have to follow orders - only the important ones. After all, didn't you tell me once about some Dobby character who visited you?"

"Yeah. He snuck out to warn me about the Chamber of Secrets opening."

"Exactly," Remus agreed pleasantly. "And his master was Lucius Malfoy, if I remember correctly. And since it is doubtful Lucius would allow Dobby out of the manor, we can only assume Dobby left of his own accord. Since visiting you wasn't putting his master in any danger, he could do it."

Harry was beginning to understand. "So, Missy can ignore Dad's orders because he doesn't mean them, and because she's not putting him in any sort of danger?"

"Precisely. And…" Remus trailed off as Sirius, who had been inhaling food at a frankly unhealthy rate, seemed to have eaten a bit too quickly. He was now turning a fetching shade of blue, and he clutched at his throat wildly.

"That can't be good," Harry noted blankly.

Remus was too busy fumbling around for his wand to pay attention. "I left my wand in my sweater!" he panicked, leaping to his feet and racing off to retrieve the precious piece of wood.

James was unable to comment, as he was currently tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth.

Huffing in irritation, Missy abandoned her hair-cutting attempts, released James with a snap of her fingers, and with another snap, removed whatever was causing Sirius to choke.

After recovering his breath somewhat, Sirius said meekly: "Thanks, Missy." Then he turned to Remus, who had just burst into the room, wand in hand. "And thanks for trying to help, Moony. Perhaps next time you'll remember to _keep your wand with you at all times!_"

Rolling his eyes, Remus shot back sternly: "And perhaps next time you'll remember to eat more slowly! You have no one to blame but yourself!"

"What are you implying?" Sirius demanded.

"That you eat like a pig!" Remus snapped.

They were cut off by the sullen look Harry was giving his father, who was trying in vain to flatten out his now-spiked hair. Abandoning their argument instantly, they chorused, "What's wrong?"

"I'm _useless_ at magic, that's what's wrong! I don't even know how to do an anti-choking charm. Hell, I don't even know if there _is_ such a thing as an anti-choking charm."

Remus smiled paternally. "You aren't clueless, Harry, you just haven't applied yourself as much as you could have. If you study a bit, you'll learn loads of things that will surely come in handy. Look at Hermione Granger! She reads every book she can get her hands on, and she's top of your year! There's no reason why you can't give her a run for her money!"

Remus seemed so enthralled with the idea that Sirius snickered. Sirius smiled innocently as Remus rounded on his friend in annoyance. "What's so funny?" he inquired.

"You sound so professor-ish! We swore an oath in fourth year that the Marauders would never, under any circumstances, teach! You broke the oath!" Sirius cackled.

"Honestly, Padfoot, you are so childish at times," Remus sighed. "We were young and foolish! Surely you've matured a bit since then." Judging by the expression on the ex-convict's face, it was rather clear to Harry that if Sirius had matured, he certainly wasn't about to let anyone know it.

.:.

After their rather interesting breakfast, the day progressed in a way that Harry could only describe as perfect. Following their morning meal the quartet trooped outside to play a two-on-two game of Quidditch, practice some new moves on Harry's Firebolt, and just have fun in general.

Lunch was a large cherry cheesecake (much to Sirius's delight), followed by treacle tart for pudding. James fretted for a moment about whether, as a parent, he should be encouraging his child to eat dessert for lunch, but quickly waved these concerns aside when Remus suggested dryly that they all eat a hearty meal of celery for dinner.

The afternoon was spent strolling about the expansive, rather picturesque, manor grounds. Potter Manor, Harry learned, featured quite a number of intriguing things, one of which being the large, aquamarine-coloured lake on the western lawns. While James fervently maintained that the lake was of the non-magical variety, Sirius swore to Harry that he had once spotted a mermaid lounging on the shore. Remus had, of course, protested.

"That's ridiculous, Sirius. The merpeople couldn't live in that lake – it is too small, not to mention it does not possess the vegetation necessary to sustain life. Besides, the Ministry has to approve locations for them to live in. Potter Manor is private property; it wouldn't be allowed, for fear we'd 'recruit' them or some other ridiculous reason."

Harry got the impression that Remus wasn't overly fond of the Ministry.

While James and Sirius seemed rather impressed by this display of knowledge, Harry, who'd received the same type of speech from Hermione thousands of times, picked up something his guardians had apparently missed.

"What d'you mean, recruit them?" he asked suspiciously. "Why would we recruit merpeople?" Then he thought of the Death Eaters, and realized they'd jump at the chance to recruit an underwater army. "Nevermind," he said meekly. "Stupid question."

Sirius frowned. "Not as much as you might think. Obviously evil gits like Snape and Malfoy would do something evil like that, and the Ministry would be right to suspect them." He grinned. "They'd also be right to throw the scumbags in Azkaban, but that's not the issue. Malfoy and Snape, I understand, but why would they restrict the Potters, of all families?"

There was a moment of silence as they considered the question.

James had no idea. For God's sake, he'd just popped out of hell yesterday morning! How was he supposed to have an opinion on the Ministry's blatant stupidity?

Sirius, unlike James, knew first-hand the injustice of the Ministry, but as he'd been in hiding, and hadn't had direct contact with it in years, couldn't divine an answer.

Remus and Harry, however, both managed to reach a similar conclusion. Remus had had many dealings with the Ministry in the past, and knew many of their ways of thinking. And Harry's opinion was formulated purely from what he'd read in that horrid paper The Daily Prophet.

"In the past, probably just to keep everything equal," Remus hypothesized. "Although nowadays, you'd think they'd want all the armies they could get on our side, whether they be on land or sea."

"If only Fudge weren't being such a git," Harry sighed. When James gave him a questioning look, he added: "After Professor Dumbledore started announcing Voldemort's return, the Daily Prophet has been discrediting him."

James gaped at his friends. "You're joking."

"First they just made snide remarks about him in the Prophet," Sirius explained, "But now they've removed him from the Wizengamot, and he's also been kicked out of his position as Chief Warlock of the Wizard's council. Not to mention the articles about him having gone senile."

"Which are, obviously, not very complimentary," Remus concluded. "Speaking of articles, I nearly forgot to tell Harry about the Prophet's latest scheme to discredit you."

"What are they doing?" Harry demanded.

"They have been spreading stories that you're insane," Sirius said bluntly. "Something along the lines of you being an attention seeking child-star who's desperate for more fame, and is therefore making up tall tales to keep himself in the limelight."

"That was a direct quote," Remus added.

James appeared to be absolutely furious about this latest injustice. "How dare they? Criticizing my son! Making up ridiculous stories just so their bloody newspaper can sell! I'm of a mind to storm over there _right now_! I'll teach those bloody gits not to lie! Oh, they can yammer on about cauldron thickness all they want, but criticize _my _son? _Not happening!_"

Now seething in fury, James plunged his hand inside his robes to retrieve his wand and storm off to do something he'd probably get arrested for. Or at least, he would have, if Sirius hadn't grabbed his hand, and when that failed, wrestled him to the ground. Madly wrestling for control of James's wand, Sirius proved victorious, and leapt back before James could get the wand back.

"GIVE ME THAT!" James bellowed. "I'LL NOT LET THE DAILY PROPHET TELL LIES! IT'S ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS, AND I AM NOT GOING TO STAND HERE AND LET THEM TEAR APART OUR SOCIETY-"

"Always melodramatic, our dear James," Remus commented mildly to Harry, who was watching the scene with no small amount of amusement.

"YOU'RE OFF YOUR ROCKER!" Sirius shouted, scrambling away as James lunged at him. "YOU CAN'T ATTACK THE BLOODY DAILY PROPHET! YOU'LL GET CHUCKED IN AZKABAN! YOU GIT!" he added for good measure.

Tired of Sirius and James's shouting match, Remus flourished his wand at his friends and declared calmly: "_Silencio_"Harry watched in interest. _That spell could come in handy one day, _he thought. _Maybe I can persuade Remus to teach me it before school starts…_

That brought an unexpected pang to Harry's stomach. When school began… it would mean he'd have to leave the Potter manor! He'd have to leave his father, his godfather, and a man who was fast becoming a great friend. _This isn't fair! _his mind screamed. _I want to spend more time with my father! _

Then Harry's practicality took over. He suppressed the unhappy thoughts with a strong mental shove. He'd just have to deal with the separation when the time came, and that time was _not _now.

Turning to Remus, who was watching calmly as James and Sirius gave him violently gestured threats, Harry cleared his throat, drawing their attention back to him. "The way I see it, the Prophet exists to sell itself. But now that it was publicly announced that Voldemort's back, and that Dumbledore and I weren't lying, surely things will quiet down. For a while, anyway. So we should all _calm_ down. And Dad," Harry added, giving his father a wry smile. "I appreciate you attempting to kill those 'bloody idiots at the Prophet', but I think you should consider skipping that plan for now."

James grinned sheepishly at his son, rather embarrassed that Harry was acting more mature than both he and Sirius put together. Sirius, seeing James's expression, roared in laughter, although the effect was somewhat diminished by the fact that no sound came out of his mouth, thanks to the silencing charm.

.:.

There had been no more arguments that afternoon, and after dinner came and went, James got a strange look in his eye. Harry recognized it immediately. It was the look Hermione got when she sentenced him to hours of revision when final exams were still months away. He glanced around for an escape route, but found himself barricaded on either side by Remus and Sirius, both of whom seemed happily oblivious to the gleam in James's eye.

"Well, that was a great day!" Harry exclaimed, attempting to stall the inevitable.

"Yes, it was," Remus agreed.

James smiled pleasantly at his son and friends. "Quite a nice day. And now that the sun has set, I think that we should do something productive with our lives."

"Such as?" Sirius said obliviously.

"Well, we three should go clean up our secret workroom. We haven't been down there in fourteen years, and it's absolutely vile. And I don't know about you, but I think that I could do with a little magical revision. There's no way the Aurors will accept me back if I can't even stun someone."

"But you _can _stun people," Sirius said, nonplussed.

James rolled his eyes. "Thank you, Sirius. What I meant is that I'm way off form, and with you being stuck in prison for over a decade, I bet you aren't in much better shape."

"Fine," Sirius huffed. "We'll revise. _Stupefy_! Happy?"

"We'll reconvene at ten o'clock," Remus announced, getting into the spirit of things.

Sirius gaped at the werewolf in horror. "That's three bloody hours!"

James grinned. "Why, so it is. Hey, you'll thank me if you ever get into a scuffle with a Death Eater who beats you because you haven't cursed anyone in a decade."

"I can take care of myself, thanks very much," Sirius muttered mutinously.

Meanwhile, Harry, who'd been backing up slowly the whole time, was now attempting to open the door without being noticed. Unfortunately, his plan was met with failure.

"I don't think so!" James cackled, rounding on his escaping son. "You, son, get to go practice your Animagus transformation! Or do your homework – whatever you like, as long as you keep yourself occupied."

"Can't I practice with you three?" he asked helplessly.

"You have to do your school work sometime, you know," Remus reminded. 

Harry gave a deep sigh. "I know. But I don't want to work!"

Sirius glared at him. "If I have to work, then by God, so do you!"

Remus gave a soft chuckle. "I certainly have missed the way things were before you left, James. Well, if we've got everything all settled, then, I'll be leaving."

Three jaws dropped.

"What? I do have a house, you know," the werewolf said defensively. "And I happen to be rather attached to it, as it happens."

"Awww, don't go, Moony! Stay a while! You haven't seen me in fourteen years! Surely you don't want to leave so soon!" James pleaded.

Remus glanced mildly at his friend, who was grovelling in a wholly pathetic manner on the ground. He didn't seem entirely opposed to the idea, and Sirius took the opportunity to clinch the vote. "Come on, Moony, stay. Besides, if you do, I'll get Kyki to make you a stack of pancakes tomorrow morning. We _need_ you here."

Harry was shocked to see a childlike look of delight appear on his ex-Professor's lined face. "Pancakes! Blueberry pancakes?"

"Any kind you like," Sirius promised, winking at Remus, who smirked and plopped down into a nearby armchair.

"Alright. I'm staying!"

-Harry's Room-

Harry gave a dismal sigh as he heard the heavy wooden doors to his immense chambers swing shut behind him. Crossing the expansive crimson room, and carefully avoiding the several expensive, _very _breakable glass vases, Harry made his way to his humungous four-poster bed and collapsed upon it with a huff.

It wasn't fair. Sirius, Remus and James got to go viciously attack each other with fantastic hexes while he, Harry, was stuck up here doing his homework. If he didn't know better, he'd have almost thought that they were trying to get him out of the way. But Harry couldn't fault his father for that; he hadn't seen his best friends in fourteen years.

_He hasn't seen his son in fourteen years either, _he thought mutinously, then hurriedly quashed down the rebellious thought.

Sighing heavily, Harry grabbed a few books, a roll of parchment, and a quill out of his trunk, and slowly scribbled "The Effects of Wolfsbane" at the top of the aged parchment. Then he propped open his many books in a nice pattern all over his bedspread, and began to write his Potions essay.

Half an hour later, Harry had completed perhaps a foot of his three-foot long essay. Needless to say, he was bored to death. Then a thought hit him. James had told him to practice his Animagus transformation, hadn't he? And hadn't he also said, "Or do your homework – whatever you like, as long as you keep yourself occupied." Did 'whatever you like' extend to practicing his sword fighting?

Harry couldn't see why not, so he plunged his hand underneath the mattress and retrieved the lethal black long-sword that was Decimare. The snake on the hilt snapped angrily at him, and hissed:

.:Where have you been? Your training will get nowhere if you persist in prancing off elsewhere every time you see something that interests you:.

Harry winced, and quickly vowed to practice for at least an hour a day. It was _not _impressed, but ceded that it would do for now.

Like yesterday, Harry drew the sword and, following the snake's instructions, began practicing his technique. Also like yesterday, Decimare managed to find fault with every single thing Harry did, and for good reason.

.:Lunge. Good. Now parry. _Parry_! That wasn't a parry, Master, that was more of a - watch it! You'll chop off your own leg doing that! You'll want to stay away from that lamp… or not. It's a good thing there are about six more of them in this ridiculously extravagant room of yours:.

Harry decided to spend the two and half hours he had practicing with his sword, mainly so it wouldn't get angry with him and kill him in his sleep. Of course, Harry wasn't sure whether Decimare could actually wield itself, but he was prepared to bet that it could. By the end of the session, Harry had successfully learned a simple blocking pattern, which he delighted in repeating over and over. Of course, he was still rubbish at sword fighting, which Decimare was only too happy to point out.

.:Block. Right, now lunge. Master, you are incapable of doing even the simplest of things! Why is it that a five year old I once trained was able to accomplish what you have in less than five minutes:.

Harry gave the sword a suspicious look. "What were you doing training a five year old?"

.:That is not important:. Decimare hissed dismissively. .:I believe that we are done for tonight. You are clearly useless at sword fighting:.

Harry couldn't get over how incredibly un-motivational his sword was. "Thanks. Perhaps you'd like to tell me how to improve, or would you rather just criticize me?" To his everlasting surprise, Decimare actually seemed pleased with his response.

.:You are growing a backbone, Master! You want advice? I'll give you some. Although you are in shape, you aren't as fit as you could be. Your muscles are geared towards things like flying - you need to also have the muscles required to sword fight. If you want to use a sword properly, you need to be able to utilize it to its fullest:.

"So what am I supposed to do? Jog every morning?"

Decimare hissed thoughtfully .:That's an idea. Let me think… yes. That will do nicely. Here is your new exercise schedule, Master. Stick to it. If you do not do your workout, I will know. And believe me, you _will _regret it:.

Harry was intimidated, it was official. "Alright. Whatever you want!" He figured it wouldn't be too bad. After all, Decimare may be a mystical object of unknowable power, but it was still just a piece of metal! How demanding could it possibly be?

.:Every morning run three times around the lake:.

Harry gaped. "That lake is huge! It's got to be a mile wide!"

.:One and a half, actually:. it replied smugly. .:And after you run, you are to do one hundred pushups and one hundred sit-ups:.

"Is that all?" Harry snapped sarcastically.

.:Well, if you think you can do more, then we'll add five hundred jumping jacks for good measure:.

Harry glared at the sword. He was tempted to toss it out the huge window to his left right then and there, but then remembered he'd promised to do as it asked. Damn. He compensated by slamming the sword back into its scabbard, and shoving it ruthlessly under his bed in an entirely violent manner.

"Stupid sword," he grumbled. "No wonder its past Masters died. It probably worked them to death." However, reflecting on his training schedule, he realized it wasn't _that_ bad. After all, the sword could have demanded ten times that amount, and he would've had to do it, thanks to his promise. Of course, he could have broken his promise, but Harry didn't like doing that unless he had no other choice.

"Talking to yourself, are you? One of the first signs of insanity," Sirius remarked cheekily, appearing out of nowhere beside Harry.

"How long have you been here?" Harry yelped, involuntarily jumping at his godfather's unexpected arrival.

Sirius raised his arms protectively. "Hey, calm down, kid! I've been here all of a minute!"

Harry relaxed. "Oh. What did you want?"

Sirius gave him a hurt expression. "Do I need a reason to visit my favourite godson?"

Harry squinted at him suspiciously. "I'm your only godson."

Sirius gave a bark-like laugh. "True enough. And a pity, I must say. Imagine how many children are out there wishing that they could have Sirius Black as a Godfather. You lucky boy, you."

Harry laughed, and Sirius drew Harry into a hug, ruffling his hair. Swatting his godfather's hand away, Harry grinned up at the man, who gave a contented sigh and plopped down on a nearby armchair. Harry felt that there were a suspicious amount of conveniently located armchairs for people to plop down on in the Potter Manor. "So, what've you been working on? The transformation?"

Harry grimaced guiltily. He had completely forgotten about that, having been occupied with Decimare. Sirius examined him piercingly. "No, eh? Well then, what have you been doing? You haven't been doing anything illegal, have you?"

Harry smiled shakily. As far as he knew, he wasn't supposed to have taken that sword from the Potter vault. But then, he was the only one who could use it properly, being a Parselmouth and all, and he certainly didn't want Voldemort using it. Besides, it was in the Potter vault, and he _was_ a Potter! Wasn't he entitled to anything he wanted? Certainly, he should have asked his father about it, but you can't have everything.

Sirius suddenly gave his godson a concerned look. "Wait, you _weren't_ doing anything illegal, were you?" Harry quickly shook his head, prompting Sirius to give a sigh of relief. "Thank God. The Ministry would kill to have something to use against you. Mustn't hand them a reason to send you to Azkaban gift wrapped, must we?"

Harry smiled slightly. Sirius ruffled his hair again. "Good kid. And now we can - my god, would you look at the time? It's nearly 10:30! James is gonna kill me!"

"Why?"

Sirius smirked. "Oh. Well, I was actually supposed to come and put you to bed. I think James sometimes forgets that you aren't a baby anymore."

Harry sighed. "Yeah. I can only imagine how tough this must be for him. Imagine, your wife dead and your son almost done school. Must be horrible."

"Yeah, well, what can I say?" Sirius shrugged. "You just keep acting the way you are, and James'll be fine in no time. Speaking as his best friend, I can personally tell you that you are being wonderful to him, and he really appreciates it."

"Really?"

"Harry, I know him better than he knows himself," Sirius said seriously. "He's glad you're here. Really. And about the Animagus thing, Harry. If you want anything to happen, you have to work on it."

Harry frowned. "Yeah, I know. I just had other things to do tonight. I'll start tomorrow." Sirius gave him an appraising look, as if to judge his sincerity, and seemed to find him being truthful.

"Alright, I can live with that. See you tomorrow, kid. And... are you going to have another one of those dreams again?"

Harry frowned. "I'm not sure. It's likely, but I can't say yes for sure. Although lately a lot of my dreams have been about endless corridors and locked doors."

Sirius looked pensive. "Well, I think I know a few places that could pertain too, but I'm not sure. Anyways, I'm going to put a silencing charm around your bed, alright? I'm sure Moony, at least, would appreciate his beauty sleep. I'm not shutting you out or anything, I'd just like sleep. Capice?"

Harry smiled. "Yeah, capice. But if I need you…"

"Just stick your head outside of your bed and scream bloody murder."

"I'll do that," he promised.

Sirius smiled fondly at his godson. "Good night, Harry."

"Night," he returned tiredly, turning and heading towards his comfy bed. "I don't suppose Dad'll be dropping in tonight?"

Sirius shifted from foot to foot, looking anxious to tell Harry something, but restraining himself at the same time.

"What is it?" Harry demanded with no small amount of amusement.

"Well, he's just a bit busy getting the… damn, I'm not supposed to tell you _that. _This secrecy thing is harder than it looks!" 

"Getting something? Getting what?" Harry asked eagerly, looking hopefully at his godfather. Sirius seemed on the verge of telling him, but then he smacked himself forcefully on the head and dashed to the door.

"Sorry, Harry, but I've got to go before I say anything I'm not supposed to," he announced. 

Frustrated, Harry gave his godfather the most pathetic puppy-dog eyes he could manage. "Come on Sirius, just give me a hint."

Sirius seemed more amused than moved. "You know, that won't work on me. I practically invented that look." Harry highly doubted that. "You don't believe me? Take _this_!" Sirius shifted to canine form, and looked up at Harry with the widest, most woe-begone chocolate brown eyes that Harry had ever seen. Unable to help himself, Harry leaned down and scratched the adorable creature behind the ear, who started wriggling on the floor in delight. Padfoot probably would've been laughing, if dogs were capable of laughing.

When Sirius shifted back to human form, Harry was forced to give in. He abandoned the puppy-dog eyes at once. Then he sighed hopelessly, and drifted aimlessly back to his bed, making sure he looked as if he were utterly depressed.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Fine. But you do realize that James will kill me for telling you. I can't say much, but I what I can say is that you'll enjoy it very much." And with a sweep of his robes, Sirius was out the door and gone.

Harry was understandably disgruntled. What kind of hint was that? Useless adults. Then it hit him that he would, in about two years, be considered an adult in the Wizarding world. The concept of being an adult frightened him nearly as much as it had frightened Sirius that morning.

After sluggishly pulling on his pajamas, Harry crawled across the expanse of his feather mattress until he finally reached the middle (or at least where he thought the middle was). He snuggled under the covers, his eyes slowly closing as his weariness finally dragged his exhausted mind into the realm of sleep.

.:Dream:.

Harry was surprised to find himself in a large white room, filled with large black dogs dueling with large, gleaming swords. Strange. Suddenly, a happy man skipped through the room, leading a stampede of rats. _That must be the Pied Piper_, Harry reflected. _That's it, I'm dreaming._

He suddenly found himself flying through the air towards one of the rats, which was slowly growing larger and larger. Harry caught a glimpse of one of its feet, which had a toe missing, before he zoomed straight through its eye, and into a large, dimly lit room. _That rat must be Wormtail!_ Harry realized with a shock.

Harry then realized that he was not alone in the large room. It seemed to be a dining hall of sorts, and it was completely empty, save for a small, round man, with watery blue eyes. Wormtail.

Harry watched as Wormtail rocked back and forth on his seat, occasionally whimpering. He seemed to be muttering to himself. Harry moved in for a closer look. Once he was about a foot away, he was able to understand vaguely Wormtail's murmuring.

"Alive… he's alive… why did he have to be alive? I never meant too… it was a mistake…"

Harry was perplexed. _Who's alive_?

"He'll never forgive me… I've been… traitor…"

_Is he talking about Dad? _Harry wondered. _He must be. _Harry was incredulous. Was Pettigrew actually regretting his decision to turn traitor against his best friends? He listened more closely.

"…forgive… perhaps he'll forgive me… no, that's impossible… hopeless… he'll hate me… I killed Lily, James will…"

_Alright_, Harry decided, _so Wormtail thinks Dad won't forgive him, and rightly so. Is that why he's hiding out in this abandoned room? He seems almost… frightened. Surely he doesn't think Dad can get at him there?_

"If he realizes I took it… but it's to stop Him… I can't let him have it… must stop Him…"

What did that mean? Stop whom from having what? Obviously something that Wormtail stole, but _what_? Harry frowned in thought, but could not think of anything "He" would want. Who was "He" anyway?

"…if my Lord… no, not _my_ Lord, never _my_ Lord again… I've made too many mistakes… I must pay the consequences…"

Abruptly standing up, all traces of uncertainty gone, Wormtail whispered, "I _will_ pay the consequences. But I won't let the Dark Lord have this. He might already have the other one, and he's already powerful enough as it is. I've got to run… yes, run. Somewhere where He can't find me…"

Wormtail grabbed a large, metallic object previously hidden underneath his chair, which, on closer inspection, turned out to be a shield. From the way he was clutching it, Harry could tell that this shield was obviously what Wormtail was trying to steal and run away with.

The thump of a footstep broke the silence, and Wormtail gave a gasp, clutched the shield tightly, and with a crack, Disapparated from the room.

.:End Dream:.

A thousand miles away, Harry awoke with a start. He could barely contain the thoughts that were threatening to burst from his skull. So Pettigrew was trying to atone for his sins, and therefore stole some shield the Dark Lord apparently wanted, and ran away with it? It didn't make a lot of sense, but his visions had never been wrong before…

Harry then recalled something Wormtail had whispered: "He might already have the other one, and he's already powerful enough as it is." Harry frowned in thought. What "other one"? Was it another shield? Or perhaps something else? And where had Wormtail stolen the shield from in the first place?

Sticking his head out the side of the bed, Harry prepared to shout for Sirius and his father to come. Perhaps they'd be able to answer his questions. Then Harry paused. As much as he loved his father and godfather, did they really need to be bothered with this? They hated Pettigrew, after all, and they may just think Harry had made it up to pacify them or something.

_No_, Harry decided, _I won't tell anyone. Maybe the vision wasn't real. _He didn't really believe that, but it was nice to hope. _I'll just keep it to myself, unless for some reason I _have _to tell someone. But not until then._

Now go to bed, he told himself. And with that, he closed his eyes, and immediately drifted off into dreamland.


	8. Summer Happenings

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Eight - Summer Happenings

True to his word, Harry hadn't told a soul about his vision of Wormtail. His fevered dreams following the vision had made sure of that. The last few remaining hours till dawn were spent in endless nightmares of the horrible consequences that would result of divulging his dreams to his guardians. Needless to say, having his father boil him alive and toss him into a pit of raging Grindylows wasn't his idea of a particularly good time. Besides, Harry didn't want his father to think that he was… he didn't know... strange or something.

Waking up the next morning feeling jubilant about the upcoming day (thoughts of his vision pushed firmly to the back of his mind), Harry tugged on a pair of shorts from his bag of Dudley-hand-me-downs and jogged out into the corridor, off to start the training regime Decimare had proscribed the evening before.

Sirius staggered out of a room up ahead, and, clearly not a morning person, growled unhappily, "Stampeding through the corridors at six in the morning! I like a prank just as much as the next person, but waking up someone this early is just cruel!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Again with the melodrama? I'm sorry, but I was eager to get outside." The claim of eagerness wasn't false - the sooner he got outside, after all, the sooner he could get into proper shape, and therefore the sooner Decimare would stop scolding him for being a lazy bum.

Bringing a hand to his godson's forehead, Sirius gave Harry a disbelieving look. "Are you alright, kid? 'Cause I could've sworn you just told me that you were going outside in the god-forsaken hours of the morning."

"That's right," Harry said cheerfully. It was actually rather fun to rile up his godfather like this.

"Why would you possibly want to do that?" he demanded.

Harry saw no reason to lie to him. "I'm going to exercise. Run laps, you know. Get in shape."

Sirius's eyes bugged at the mere thought. "But _why_?"

Harry grinned. "Because I, unlike some people, actually enjoy being able to eat breakfast without panting in exhaustion when trying to reach the maple syrup. Which was _right in front of you_, Sirius."

Sirius folded his arms in defiance. ""I was not, for your information, 'panting'. I was breathing loudly."

"Right," Harry snorted. "I believe you. Really. I'll be out exercising if you need me. You know, taking care of my body and not turning into a fat, lazy slob." Harry flashed his godfather a challenging grin, then kicked up his heels and sprinted off down the hall.

Sirius gaped after his godson in shock, before turning and dashing down the hall towards the giant gilded doors of the Master bedroom. "Prongs, old buddy, rise and shine!" he bellowed as he flew to the curtains and yanked them open mercilessly.

A vaguely human shape shifted under the overstuffed scarlet comforter and a tousled black head poked out timidly, chocolate eyes blinking drowsily. Sirius bounded over to the giant bed and forcibly hauled his half-sleeping friend away from the incredibly soft crimson sheets. James's limbs flailed in protest as he was dumped unceremoniously on the floor, one arm whacking his assailant forcefully across the face.

"Oww," Sirius complained, releasing James, who ceased thrashing at once. He looked up at Sirius sleepily.

"What do _you _want?" he grumbled, raising one hand to shield his eyes from the searing sunlight. James didn't not seem to care one iota that he'd smacked his friend, but then, his brain _was _still pretty fuzzy.

Sirius frowned. "You won't _believe _what that brat of a son of yours said to me. He's gone-"

"_What?_" James bellowed, jumping to his feet, all traces of sleepiness gone. "_Harry's gone? For how long? Why didn't you tell me sooner?"_

"Again with the flailing arms," Sirius grumbled as James's arms lashed out again and sent the ex-convict sprawling to the ground. "He's gone _outside_, Prongs! Get a grip!" He sprang to his feet and herded James towards the ensuite bathroom, grabbing a towel on the way. "He's suddenly decided to get in shape, and he had the nerve to call me a lazy blob! No one gets away with insulting me!"

"Well, actually…" James began, but Sirius shoved a pair of socks in his mouth and slammed the bathroom door shut.

"So I've decided that we're joining him," he concluded.

James wrenched open the door furiously. "I am doing no such thing! You can lose sleep all you want, and go run to your heart's content, but I-" James suddenly came up with the perfect excuse to skip the exercise session. "I need to finish setting up the surprise."

Sirius's face fell at the entirely plausible excuse James had given him. Then it brightened. "Well then, I can get Moony to come instead!" Sirius bounded out of the room, bellowing happily, "MOONY! WAKEY WAKEY!"

James could only shake his head sadly.

The crisp morning air tore through Harry's messy locks as he huffed his way around the way-too-large-to-be-allowed lake. _Running isn't nearly as easy as it seems, _Harry reflected bitterly. _Sure, those Olympic runners can run for miles and still smile cheerfully at the cameras, but they _can't _be normal. Normal humans would die of exhaustion five minutes in! No wonder Olympic athletes are always being accused of using steroids. _

Still, Harry wasn't the youngest Quidditch player in a century for nothing. You had to be in fairly good shape to keep up with the intensity of Quidditch, and since Harry was the best Seeker at Hogwarts, he was pretty physically fit. He therefore managed to round the lake in around ten minutes – _Not too bad at all_, Harry reflected. Unfortunately, as Harry rounded the lake the second time, his energy reserves were pretty much gone, so he took an agonizing twenty minutes the second time. The third lap stretched on for almost half an hour, and as Harry finally collapsed to the springy grass in front of the massive stone manor, he dimly realized that Decimare would _not_ be impressed.

_Tough luck, _Harry thought mutinously. _I'll get better, just you wait and see._

Not having grown quite the backbone to defy the domineering serpent entirely, Harry wearily pushed himself up and began the pushups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks that Decimare had so callously prescribed.

_One… two… three… four…_

"C'mon, Moony! Exercising is _fun_, you'll see!"

Harry leapt to his feet and scanned the lawns anxiously for the interruption. Sure enough, the thin figures of Sirius and Remus were trudging towards the lake, Sirius abnormally happy as usual, and Remus looking distinctly disgruntled with his manic-depressive friend. _Oh no… _Harry thought in panic. _This is all I need. Those two haven't done a sit-up in years, and they'll probably just spend the next hour laughing at me. _Harry made a rather pathetic attempt to hide behind a nearby tree, but as the tree was only a sapling, and he was about three times wider than it, he failed rather spectacularly.

"_Harry!_" Sirius exclaimed, shifting to dog form and bounding towards his godson. With a thump, and a muffled "Oof!" from Harry, man and dog tumbled to the ground in a tangle of paws and fleshy pink limbs. Padfoot slobbered happily all over his godson, who yelped in disgust and shoved the mangy canine from his body.

"Sirius, that's _disgusting!_" Harry scolded. Padfoot did his best doggy grin and bounded forward to pin Harry to the ground once more.

"Pad… foot," Harry gasped, "Get-off-me-right-now!" When the mutt didn't respond, Harry used all his remaining strength to roll over, giving him the upper hand. "Ha!" he declared triumphantly. Sirius struggled helplessly for a moment, before giving in and shifting back to man-form. It was only then that Harry would let his Godfather up.

Pulling himself to his feet with as much dignity as possible, Harry got his first proper look at his godfather and friend, and discovered that they were decked out in fluorescent purple gym shorts, t-shirts, and running shoes. Needless to say, they were quite the sight to behold, and if Harry weren't so irritated with them, he probably would have died from laughter.

"_Why _are you here?"

"I keep asking myself the same question," Remus grumbled unhappily. "Apparently we're here for moral support, or some such nonsense." 

Harry frowned. "Thanks, but I'd rather exercise on my own…"

"Why?" Sirius asked, pouting.

Harry recoiled in horror. "Don't _do_ that! You look like a girl!"

Sirius gasped in a very feminine manner, and batted his eyelashes teasingly. The sudden urge to tease his godfather mercilessly rose up in Harry's mind, but he didn't think the man would much care if he did. Sirius didn't seem to take offense at anything… except cracks against Gryffindor, of course.

"Look, I don't want you seeing me make a fool of myself, and…"

"Ah ha!" Sirius crowed triumphantly. "So that's it, then! You're embarrassed to be seen with your godfather! Am I that awful to you Harry? Am I that un-loveable?"

Harry, who could not remember ever having implied such a thing, gave his godfather a puzzled look. Deciding it was best to smile and nod, Harry backed away slowly. Remus valiantly attempted to conceal his laughter, but it was a lost cause.

Sirius threw up his hands in indignation. "Make fun of me, why don't you!" As his friends fought to keep a straight face, an enlightened look suddenly came over the Animagus's face. "_Nice _try, Harry! You almost had me distracted for a minute there. Not many can distract me, you know."

"Oh, for sure," Remus agreed somewhat sarcastically. Suddenly, the werewolf jerked his head upwards and gestured wildly: "Look! A flying elephant!" Sirius predictably whirled around at his words, studying the sky furiously for a glimpse of the elusive pachyderm.

"I rest my case," Remus grinned victoriously.

While Sirius and Moony bickered good-naturedly about elephants and UFO's, Harry beat a hasty retreat back to the lakeside to continue his exercises. The way he figured it, Sirius and Remus would be occupied for _hours _with their latest argument, and thus wouldn't be able to witness his less-than-inspiring attempt at exercise.

When Harry reached the 50 pushup mark, Sirius finally noticed his godson had started exercising without him.

"Harry! How could you?" Sirius exclaimed, feigning a hurt look. He jumped down to the ground beside his godson, and began doing pushups in-sync with Harry. Harry was actually quite impressed that Sirius was so in-shape, until Sirius started to slow down, and had collapsed by 20.

Remus chuckled. "Alright, Padfoot, that's enough exercising for you." He grabbed Sirius firmly by the arm and wrenched him up from the ground, where he had collapsed in a bedraggled heap. Sirius moaned incoherently as Remus dragged him to his feet.

Harry paused in his pushups and peered curiously at his Godfather. "Is he alright?"

"Of course he is," Remus scoffed. "He's just being overly dramatic, as usual. Although I think it would do him good to get some rest."

"Your wisdom boggles my pitiful mind," Sirius agreed. "Get me inside before I fall over again, Moony."

Remus did not seem overly impressed by this, but then Sirius… winked? Harry stared at the duo for a moment, until Remus suddenly smiled brightly and said cheerfully, "Yes, yes! I'll just take Sirius inside to relax, Harry, and you keep on exercising. Exactly when will you be finished?"

Harry stared at him blankly. What were Padfoot and Moony up to?

Sirius groaned, and kicked Remus as indiscreetly as he could in the leg. The werewolf grunted and elbowed his assaulter in the gut. "We'll be going now," Remus concluded. "I should think it would take at least another half hour, Harry?"

"Er… sure?"

"Excellent! We'll see you inside then! Oh… try to wear something presentable, yes?"

"Alright…"

Remus smiled one more time, and then dragged Sirius up the hill to the manor, through the doors and then out of sight. Harry watched them go in puzzlement. It was obvious that they were planning something, but at the moment Harry was frankly more concerned with finishing his exercises than with contemplating what his guardian and friend were up to. Harry was also fairly certain that as long as Remus was involved, nothing too insane would occur.

The moment the garden door had slammed shut behind them, Sirius dissolved into laughter, prompting his stoic friend to frown. "Why do you do that, Padfoot? I know that you are acting carefree around Harry to ease his worry, but this is getting excessive. Having a fun time is one thing, but at this rate you're going to make him let his guard down and get sloppy!"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "And they say _I'm _melodramatic. Harry's been through enough, Moony, he doesn't need to worry about me and my problems. Besides, I was just in Azkaban for _twelve years_. Surely I deserve some fun?"

"The Dark Lord is back, and dangerous at that! And the Ministry, even though they know He's back, aren't doing very much on the offensive _or _defensive front! Look Padfoot, I know you just want to have fun, but you are an adult. You must play the part, however out of character it seems."

Sirius frowned. "What would you have me do, Remus? Walk around scowling, constantly tense and irritable, never making any jokes? Lord, Moony, I tried the responsible thing last year, and look where that got me!" Sirius's expression was dark and dangerous. Truth be told, it made Remus a tad uneasy, something he hadn't felt since he'd believed his friend an insane murderous traitor.

The werewolf forced a smile. "Yes, _look_ where that got you! You are cleared of all charges, James is alive, and Harry is happier than I've ever seen him! Being responsible is a good thing!"

Sirius looked at him almost pityingly. "Have you ever heard the phrase, 'A wolf in sheep's clothing'?"

"Of course."

"Well?" Sirius demanded.

"Well what?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Think on it, Moony. Anyway, I'm going to help Prongs get together Harry's surprise. We've got to hurry; Harry'll be done soon."

And as Sirius shifted to Padfoot and dashed off down the corridor, Remus could not help but scratch his head in confusion at his old friend's cryptic words.


	9. The Party at Grimmauld Place

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Nine - The Party at Grimmauld Place

"Well, this is just great," Harry declared as he gazed mournfully at his closet of Dudley's hand-me-downs. "Remus said to wear something nice. I am _so_ screwed." Spotting a tuft of lace peeking out from behind a heavily stained shirt, Harry grabbed the offending material and pulled it out to reveal a women's cocktail dress, complete with plunging neckline and fuchsia bows.

Sirius bounded into the room. "Are you dressed yet? Is it something nice? It's almost time to go!"

Then he noticed the hideous dress his godson was currently studying with apparent interest.

He blinked. "On second thought, maybe I shouldn't have vetoed James's idea of having Missy dress you."

Harry scowled and thrust the dress back into the closet where it belonged. "Time to go where?" he asked airily, pretending nothing had happened.

Sirius smiled mysteriously. "Oh, nowhere. Well, actually… James'll explain downstairs." He checked his watch. "You'd really better get dressed, you know. James will throw a hissy fit if we're late."

A low growl emanated from Harry's throat. "Late for _what_? And in terms of clothing… if you can call this clothing… which do you prefer? The sickly puce-green t-shirt or the ragged pink blouse? Wait a minute, that's Aunt Petunia's as well. Why does Dudley have so much of his mother's clothing?" Harry asked rhetorically as he tossed the disgustingly frilly blouse over his shoulder. Sirius looked on in amusement.

"You didn't consider checking the other closet, did you?"

"What other closet?" Harry asked absentmindedly as he attempted to brush a clod of dirt off a halfway decent purple shirt. "This is the only closet in the room."

Sirius simply grinned, reached out a hand, and pressed down a lion carving on the nearby wall. The wall swung open to reveal an extensive walk-in closet, filled with expensive robes of varying size and color. Harry gaped in astonishment.

"Oh come on, Harry. You're in the frickin' _Potter_ _manor_. Remember the Potters? Filthy rich family? Did you seriously think your father would let you even go near this room unless it was fully stocked with everything you could _possibly _need?"

Harry flushed. "Right." Hurrying into the closet, Harry grabbed a dark green robe and sped into the attached bathroom. A few minutes later he emerged with robes in place and hair coiffed, looking fairly decent, and perhaps even a little bit handsome.

Sirius beamed. "Looking great, kid. Let's get going, or James is gonna have my hide."

Grabbing his wand as he went, Harry stuffed the rod into his pocket and followed Sirius as he sauntered out of the room, prattling on about the most random subject he could think of. Today's topic was chicken farming in space. And Sirius said _he _was weird.

.:Downstairs:.

"About time you got here," James said crossly from his armchair, which Missy, who was spiking his hair with massive amounts of gel, had tied him to. "Could we leave now? No offense Missy, but I'd rather not look like Snivellus."

"Snivellus?" Harry asked in interest as he and Sirius strolled over to their bound friend. Remus, sitting across from James, looked up from the magazine he was reading (The Quibbler), sighed, and tossed it onto a nearby end table.

"Yes, Snivellus. Our nickname for Professor Snape," Remus explained.

Sirius snorted. "I still can't believe that git ever became a professor."

"You and me both," Harry laughed.

"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt," James snapped sarcastically, "but would one of you mind _helping me get away from this scissor-wielding psycho!_"

Missy, who was completely ignoring her master as usual, gave a final tug to his hair (causing James to yelp), snapped her fingers to vanish the ropes, and disappeared with a pop.

James vainly attempted to muss his hair, but discovered that Missy had used some sort of magically strong, super-hold gel. Harry cleared his throat uncomfortably when James was on the verge of whimpering in distress.

"Sorry to interrupt your… uh… grooming, Dad, but… where are we going, exactly?"

James abandoned his fussing and leveled a death glare at Sirius, who raised his hands in mock innocence and backed away. "Hey! It wasn't my fault! It just slipped out! You know I don't have any self-control! Don't kill me!"

"Fine," James sighed. "Since our resident genius here tipped you off early, the surprise is kind of ruined, so I suppose you can know. We're going to number 12, Grimmauld Place."

The Marauders waited in anticipation for Harry's elated response to James's declaration. Harry, of course, had no idea what they were talking about.

"Number who, what?"

Sirius cleared his throat importantly. "Just as the Potters have the Potter Manor, the Blacks have Grimmauld Place."

"Er…"

"It's the Black house! The ancestral home that has belonged to my family for generations! I used to live there when I was a kid – then I was arrested, imprisoned, and escaped, so I gave it to the Order to use as headquarters."

"The place where you grew up?" Harry said excitedly. "This I want to see!"

"Just one word of advice?" Remus cut in. "Don't be surprised by what you see there, Harry. The Blacks are traditionally a very dark-magic oriented family. Sirius here is an exception to the Black norm, but his house is exactly what you'd expect of a dark wizard."

Harry gulped. "So… what? The house is going to attack me or something?"

Sirius grimaced. "No, but let's just say it's not the most pleasant of places. And keep your voice down once we get there, alright?"

Harry frowned in puzzlement. "Alright…"

Understanding sparked in James's eyes. "Your mum's portrait's still there, then?" Sirius nodded glumly. "Shit. Forget what Sirius said Harry. Don't make _any_ noise at all. You do _not_ want to hear his mum when she's disturbed."

"Er… okay…"

"Great!" Sirius exclaimed cheerfully. "Let's go! Take some floo powder, Harry. The address is 12, Grimmauld Place. Go on!"

Harry sighed unhappily, grabbed a handful of floo powder out of the official floo powder bucket, and jumped into the ornate marble fireplace set into the sidewall of the entrance hall.

"Ten sickles says he gets lost," Sirius snickered to James as Harry leapt into the flames while shouting his destination.

"Fifteen says he ends up exactly where he meant to go," Remus countered with a twinkle in his eye. James gaped at his old friend in astonishment. Remus _never _bet on anything that wasn't completely assured.

"I see age has thrown your caution to the wind," he proclaimed happily. "Good on you, Moony!"

Remus snorted. "Have more faith in your son, James."

James shook his head. "Never assume anything when it comes to Potters and floo powder, my friend. When mortal enemies work in tandem, there can be no knowing what the result will be."

.:Grimmauld Place:.

Harry tumbled out of a large, stone fireplace, and promptly banged his head on the hard flagstone floor. While Sirius, James, and Remus rolled out after him, Harry took the opportunity to examine his surroundings. He was in a fairly large kitchen, with a large wooden table and chairs set directly in front of him, and what looked suspiciously like bloodstains pooled around the base of the stove.

"Home sweet home," Sirius muttered darkly, but quickly plastered a smile on his face when James glared at him in warning. "Right! Well, this way, Harry. We're going to go down the hall to your right, all the way to the double doors at the end of the hall. Try not to make any noise."

With Sirius in the lead, the four tiptoed their way out of the kitchen, down the dark, gloomy hall, and past various evil looking paintings, as well as a large set of curtains that Harry figured must be covering a window. As they passed the curtains, Sirius mouthed the words, "My mum". _That must be his mum's portrait_, Harry realized.

When they finally reached the double doors at the end of the hall, Sirius guided Harry to the front of the group, and urged him to open the doors. Harry, shrugging, did as he was told. The room beyond was pitch black, so dark that he couldn't see anything at all. Behind him, he heard the three men shuffle inside and shut the door quietly. James's voice whispered _Silencio, _and Harry suddenly found himself very worried over what they were planning.

Suddenly, the lights flared into existence, and Harry was shocked to find himself starring out at over thirty people, all sporting brightly colored clothing and beaming widely. He spotted among the crowd Hermione, the Weasleys, Mad-Eye Moody, and quite a few adults he didn't recognize. Having not seen Hermione or the Weasleys in two weeks, Harry was delighted to see them, and almost missed the huge cake lying on a table in front of him, with the words "Happy Birthday, Harry" written in sparkly green icing.

"Happy Birthday, Harry!" the occupants of the room chorused, and Harry whirled around to find his father, godfather, and Remus grinning triumphantly. Harry felt his face hurting, and realized that he was grinning just as happily. Then a thought struck him.

"Thanks very much everyone, I really appreciate all this," Harry began, waving his arm to take in the multitude of happy faces smiling at him, and the humungous chocolate cake. "But I feel it necessary to point out that my birthday isn't for another two weeks."

Ron grinned. "Excellent point, that. Hermione, care to explain?"

Hermione, her puffy hair tied back in a loose braid, said hastily, "Well, you see, Harry, you've never exactly had a birthday party before, and since Dumbledore said you'd be coming over soon, we figured we could throw you one. But then Mr. Potter came back to life, and Sirius was freed, and I figured, why wait? I mean, they've already missed - well, actually, we've all missed - all your birthdays prior to this, so I owled Sirius and asked him if he wanted to have a make-up party of sorts for all the parties you've missed, and he said yes, so Mr. Potter and a group of us organized the party, and now here we are." Hermione said all this very quickly, making it rather hard for Harry to take in everything.

"And the greatest thing is, we can have another party in two weeks on your actual birthday!" Ron laughed. "Two parties in two weeks; sounds like a good deal to me, mate!"

Harry was overwhelmed. "But, you didn't have to do all this! I mean, I've been fine without any parties…"

"Harry, what have I been telling you about self-deprecating thoughts?" James said pointedly. Harry winced.

"Well, I suppose that's… I mean… well… thanks," he concluded uncomfortably. Apparently touched by Harry's stammering, Sirius helped draw attention away from the flushing boy by seizing James in a gigantic bear hug.

"Isn't he adorable?" Sirius sobbed, soaking James's shoulder with fake-tears as James wrinkled his nose and attempted in vain to shove him away.

"Could we start this party already?" James demanded in agitation. "And someone get this lug off of me!"

The crowd laughed and someone flicked on the wizarding wireless, allowing the party to finally get under way. Harry punched Sirius on the arm and laughed. "Thanks for the save, Godfather mine, but you can really let go of my father now. He's looking rather… delicate."

As Sirius snickered and released the scarred-for-life James, Molly Weasley bustled forward, enveloping Harry in her own hug, and was pleased to see that he didn't stiffen up like he used to do when she hugged him. "It's so lovely to see you again, Harry dear! But do eat up, the cake will get stale! Surely you're hungry?"

"Er… sure…" Harry replied in distraction as he scanned the crowd for his best friends. Mrs. Weasley dragged him towards the buffet table.

"Eat something, dear," she advised him, "I don't doubt your father - bless his soul - has been filling you right up, but I can still do my part, can't I?" She piled a gigantic piece of cake onto Harry's tiny plate and waited expectantly as his eyes took in the monstrous slice. Luckily, Alastor Moody called the Weasley matriarch over to speak with him a second later, allowing Harry to escape unscathed.

He made his way as stealthily as he could over to the corner where Hermione and the Weasley children were arraigned. Ron scooted over to make space for his friend, babbling all the while about how happy he was to see him, how pleased he was that James was alive, etc. etc.

"Alright Ron, I get the picture," Harry grinned, happy to once again be among his friends. "So how are you guys? Keeping busy?"

Hermione glared sternly at Ron, who was attempting to inhale his slice of cake. "Busy? I suppose so. I mean, we're in the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, aren't we?"

"Um, we are?"

Hermione scoffed. "Of course we are! Didn't Sirius or your father tell you about it yet?"

"Er… judging by my previous question…"

"Alright, I get the picture. I just expected that since your dad and Sirius are _in_ the Order. . ."

Harry threw his hands up in frustration. "Would someone explain what's going on!"

Fred and George grinned. "The Order of the Phoenix is a group put together by Dumbledore to fight What's-his-face," Fred explained.

"Its members consist of those dating from the original Order started in the 70's-" George added.

"-and those from our generation. For example, us," Fred finished.

"You two aren't in the Order! You aren't finished school yet. Don't lie!" Hermione scolded. "And what exactly did you call V-V-Voldemort?"

Ginny, Ron, Fred and George all flinched. Fred waved his arm in a broad arc. "Because of reactions like this. By calling him something mildly amusing, such as What's His Face, we are adding a degree of humor to an otherwise depressing subject."

"Yeah, Hermione, after all, fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself. Or something like that," Ron added in somewhat helpfully. "What do you think, Harry?"

Harry frowned. "Well, it would be better of course if you called Voldemort by his true name, but if you can't manage that, I suppose joking is the next best thing. Just make sure you don't call him that to his face, or Voldemort will pulverize you. Follow Hermione's example - call him by his name."

Hermione blushed. "Well, I just thought that it would be a good idea to get over my fear of his name sooner or later…"

"That's fine, Hermione." Harry assured her. A pitiful whine caught his attention, and he looked over his shoulder to see Sirius in dog form being attacked by a comb (wielded by Mrs. Weasley). Padfoot rolled on the floor, madly attempting to escape the grooming device. Harry laughed aloud. "Back in a sec, guys. I have to go save Sirius."

"Later." Ron waved his hand dismissingly at Harry, and started in on another piece of cake. As Harry made his way through the crowd, he could vaguely hear Hermione's "urgh" of disgust.

After a few handshakes and wishes for him to have a happy birthday by various people, Harry made his way over to Sirius and Mrs. Weasley. "Mrs. Weasley? Sorry to interrupt, but I kind of wanted to spend some time with my godfather."

She smiled as she attempted to tie a ribbon in Sirius's freshly brushed fur. Sirius let out a loud whimper. "Of course, Harry dear, give me a second." Sirius sent Harry a "save-me" look.

Harry cleared his throat again. "That's alright, Mrs. Weasley. I can wait. I mean, I've grown up without any guardian who gave a damn about me, without a house to call my own, without people who love me… I don't see why I can't wait a few minutes longer to talk to the man who endured the horrors of Azkaban for twelve years and still bears deep emotional scars from his time of imprisonment." He sniffed for effect, and pretended to wipe back a tear. Mrs. Weasley immediately shoved Sirius towards Harry, pulled both of them into a huge hug, and rushed off in tears.

Sirius popped back into human form, and gave his Godson an admiring look. "That was _some_ performance, kid. Do you always have that effect on the ladies?" He ruffled Harry's hair proudly.

"Sirius!" Harry exclaimed, swatting Sirius's hand away from his hair.

Sirius gave him an innocent smile. "What? You seem to be quite the ladies man. With your talent, it should be easy to pick up a pretty girl. What about that Ginny girl? She's pretty cute."

Harry shuddered. "Please do not ever mention your possible attraction to any of my friends again."

"Possible attraction! It was just an observation!"

"Right."

The party wound down by mid afternoon, and the majority of guests packed up and departed for their respective homes. Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys spent the rest of the evening roaming the house with Sirius and James, who happily related many fascinating stories of their adventures in the Black Manor when they were younger.

"-yeah, we had a lot of great times, but I couldn't take it any longer, so I moved out summer before our sixth year."

"You're kidding! Where'd you go?" Ginny asked in astonishment.

"My house." James explained. "Ah, we had a blast. Good times, my friends, good times."

"You aren't giving them any dangerous ideas, are you?" Remus asked James as he entered the room, with Moody in tow. Moody, whom Harry had already greeted at the party, glared around suspiciously, magical eyeball swiveling madly. Moody suddenly stopped, twitched his ear as if having heard something, signaled to Remus, and swept out the door.

"I hate to say it, but it's almost ten o'clock, and Molly's coming up to send you all to bed." Remus explained apologetically. "I think Alastor's going to delay her, but he can't hold her off forever. So you'll have to say your goodbyes, I'm afraid."

"But Remus, aren't we staying over?" Harry asked anxiously, not wishing to be separated from his friends. Remus shook his head.

"I'm afraid not. Voldemort is very eager to get his hands on you and your father, Harry, and at the moment, the safest place for you is the Potter manor. It's a matter of safety."

Harry sighed. "Well, when can I see them again?"

"In two weeks at your birthday party." James volunteered. Ginny gasped in shock.

"Two _weeks_! Are you insane? Harry'll go batty without us there to keep him sane!"

"It's for the best." Harry told her. "I wouldn't want to put anyone in danger…"

Ginny sighed, and pretended to smack him. "You git, you aren't putting anyone in danger. Get that through your head!"

James gave the fuming redhead a gentle smile. "I'm afraid that isn't true, Ginny, but I do thank you for your concern. Harry? Sirius? Shall we?"

"What about Moony?" Sirius enquired.

"I will return to my cottage. It is my home, you know, and I do like it there." Fortunately, Sirius overcame his base instinct to voice his disapproval of the plan, thus preventing the inevitable fight from occurring.

James clapped his hands. "Well then, it's been a great party, thank you all for attending, and thank you Hermione for the idea in the first place. We'll be going now, so goodbye!"

"Yes, bye," Harry tacked on. "See you in two weeks, I s'pose." He stepped towards the door.

"Don't come crying to us when you go insane from being stuck with only those two for company for two entire weeks," Ron muttered, and Sirius and James affected a hurt air while Ginny and the twins sniggered quietly.

Harry just laughed.


	10. How to Win a Girl James's Way

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Ten - How to Win a Girl (James's Way)

With Remus remaining at Grimmauld Place to ensure the twins didn't blow the house up or drive their mother insane, the next week passed with surprisingly few disturbances. Harry, Sirius, and James spent many happy hours playing Quidditch, helping Harry with his homework, and often just strolling around the grounds chatting about nothing in particular.

Come Sunday evening, Harry was peaceful and content with his life that he knew something troublesome had to happen soon. In Harry's experience, there was no such thing for him as having a normal life - and although Sirius and James worked hard to get this idea out of his head, Harry knew he was right. He was doomed to be the Boy-Who-Lived, or, more accurately, the Boy-Who-Had-Horribly-Unlucky-Things-Happen-To-Him-No-Matter-How-Hard-He-Tried-To-Avoid-Them.

Still, it was rather hard to think such depressing thoughts when you were curled up in a squishy armchair in front of a roaring fire with a mug of hot chocolate in hand. Taking another sip, Harry returned his concentration to his father, who was fondly recalling a childhood memory.

"... and so Snivellus says, 'You may be an egoistic prat, Potter, but I can still hex you from here to Saturn!' I, of course, couldn't take this lying down, so I drew my wand dramatically from its inscribed black leather holster (which has been in the family for generations), and uttered the insanely complex Incendio charm, which set Snape's greasy hair on fire!"

Harry felt the need to cut in at this point. "Dad, I learned the Incendio charm in, like, third year. It's about as insanely complex as Wingardium Leviosa is."

James waved off this comment. "Ignoring a certain someone who keeps interrupting me, I shall continue my grand tale. So, Snape is burning up nicely, and is screaming various profanities..."

As James rambled on, Sirius and Harry exchanged an amused glance. The man had been talking for the past hour - Sirius hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said James could talk the ear off a yak. And the scary part was, Harry was hanging on to his father's every word.

"And then who arrives on the scene but Lily!" James declared, but stopped short when he spoke his wife's name. He stared blankly off into space for a moment, looking vaguely confused, and more than a little saddened, before snapping out of his trance. Standing up abruptly, he grunted, "I'm going to bed now. Night," and swept off.

Harry shifted uneasily on his armchair as his father disappeared from the room. "I didn't know that he still mourned for mum," he murmured. Sirius shook his head.

"I had no idea that he did either. But then, we've both had over a decade to come to terms with Lily's death, whereas he's only had a week, not counting his time in hell."

The two sat quietly, each thinking their own thoughts, until Harry eventually broke the silence. "Well, I think that I'm going to turn in also. It's a tad early, but-"

Sirius scoffed. "A _tad_ early? Harry, it's seven o'clock! I usually start dinner at that time! Why do you always turn in so early?"

The suspicion in his voice caused Harry to wince and turn away. He had been going to bed early every night in order to spend as much time as possible training with Decimare… but it wasn't like he could tell Sirius that. He still wasn't ready to tell anyone of his theft of the ancient sword. But how to deflect Sirius's question?

"Well, Sirius, I'm a teenage boy, and I need-"

Sirius suddenly grinned, and waved a hand to cut Harry off. "Oh! Of course! I should have known! Hormones and all that. Well, don't worry about it, kid, you can admit it to me. 'Wanking off', as they say, is a perfectly natural part of a man's life. You don't have to say any more."

Harry was shocked, and a little bit horrified. "No, wait! I do need to say more! I just need some space, you know, alone time! I'm not-"

Sirius cut him off again. "It's alright, Harry. I understand perfectly. Once you've been with as many ladies as I have, you'll feel more comfortable with your 'nighttime adventures'. Sweet dreams." He winked at Harry conspiratorially, and swept out of the room, robes swishing dramatically.

Harry was frozen to the spot. Of all the things he didn't need to know about Sirius, his sleeping with multiple women was at the top of the list. Harry stayed comfortably in a stunned stupor for about ten minutes, before he decided to pretend the conversation had never happened, and headed up to his room. Unfortunately, he ran into Sirius halfway there. Before he could say anything, perhaps denying his... nighttime adventures, Sirius spoke up.

"Hey, kid, you know I was kidding about before, right? It's none of my business what you do at night. I mean, for all I know, you spend your time secretly studying the evil art of potion brewing!"

Harry laughed softly, easing up the tension in the hall considerably.

"But seriously Harry, all joking aside, if you ever need help with anything, and I mean _anything_ - well, unless that anything involves befriending Snivellus or anything equally sinister - you can come to me or your dad. We're your guardians for a reason, you know."

Harry smiled. "I'll do that. And, about that rather disturbing conversation we just had-"

Sirius winked. "It never happened. Anyway, good night, kid. Sweet dreams. Actually, more importantly, _safe_ dreams. Have you had anymore visions lately?"

Harry sighed. "No, I haven't. Voldemort's completely stopped attacking people and holding meetings. It's like he wants to be invisible or something. I wonder if he's trying to convince the Ministry that he's not actually returned?"

"Do you know what? He may actually be doing that. It won't work, though. Not if Dumbledore has anything to say about it, anyway," said Sirius with a frown.

"Well, that's good news, I suppose. I mean, if we can't trust Dumbledore, who can we trust?"

"With the amount of things that man doesn't tell us, I'm not so sure we _should _trust him…" Sirius muttered.

"What was that?" Harry enquired in interest.

Sirius blinked. "Sorry?"

"You were muttering something about not trusting Dumbledore."

Sirius regarded him skeptically. "You need more sleep, kid. Just get a good night's rest. I'll see you in the morning."

"Sirius!" Harry bellowed after his godfather, who shifted to canine form and galloped up the hall, rounded the corner, and disappeared. "Damn," Harry swore, imagining the violent things he would do to Sirius when he got his hands on him. But as he entered his huge, luxurious room, Harry couldn't help but wonder whether or not he'd actually heard the mutter. Sirius was a very good actor - he could've just said that to confuse Harry.

_I wouldn't put it past him, _he grinned.

Harry eventually decided to store it in the file in his head reserved for "Random pieces of information that I'll probably never need, but may use eventually." The only other file in this folder was the vision of Pettigrew Harry had a week ago - the one about Pettigrew turning and running from the Dark Lord, in his possession some shield that Voldemort apparently wanted. It also mentioned another object the Dark Lord was after, but a thorough cross-examining by Harry had led him to discover that he still had absolutely no idea what the object was.

Sighing, Harry threw on the loose robe he'd taken to wearing whenever he trained with Decimare. It was a plain robe, tan, with no ornamentation whatsoever. Decimare had informed Harry that when he eventually mastered the art of sword fighting, he would gain the title of Blade Master, a title that had not been used for the past century (since swords were not really used too much past that point). Harry eagerly awaited that day, as the title would finally show the world that he had accomplished something by himself, rather than with luck or help from others.

With this encouraging thought in his mind, Harry set about warming up his muscles with some easy stretches Decimare had shown (or rather, told) him. Finished these, he burrowed his hand underneath the king-sized mattress, to emerge holding the beautiful black broadsword Decimare. The ornately carved snake coiled around the leather hilt hissed at him:

.:Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love being squished underneath a heavy mattress all day, but the scenery isn't exactly what I'd prefer-:.

"Stow it," Harry snapped. "You've become way too sarcastic for your own good. I should have never explained what sarcasm meant."

.:Nonsense, Master, I've known what sarcasm is ever since the day I was forged. You forget, my last master was Salazar Slytherin, and I dare you to find a more sarcastic man than him. I've just been out of practice:.

Harry sighed. Just what he needed: a sarcastic, slightly sadistic sword. What was the world coming to? "But you are now apparently back to your regular self, right?"

.:Precisely. Enough idle chatter. We shall begin with your blocking. You are still pathetically incompetent:.

'What did I do to have earned this?' Harry asked himself as he swung his sword furiously around, attempting to block the vicious attacks of an invisible, immaterial foe. Although Decimare claimed Harry was an incompetent idiot, Harry was certain that he'd improved in the past week, even if it was just a teensy bit. At least he had limited control over the sword when he swung it wildly (he'd only broken three lamps so far), and was also getting less and less exhausted after each session, although that was thanks to the two hours of exercising out by the lake he did every morning.

Surprisingly, after the first intrusion of Sirius and Remus on his exercising a week ago, Sirius had backed off, and had presumably advised James to allow his son the opportunity to have a few hours of "alone time" every morning. This surprising act of consideration from Sirius had completely baffled Harry, but whatever reason Sirius had come up with for granting Harry a few hours of peace, Harry was grateful for it.

A loud crash brought Harry's thoughts back to the present. A large potted plant lay on the floor in pieces, and Decimare was hissing furiously at him.

.:What are you doing? You cannot learn to fight if you have no focus! If you keep getting distracted, you will never survive! I'm teaching you meditation:. the snake decided firmly. .:Sit down, cross-legged, and close your eyes:.

Slightly confused, Harry did as he was told.

.:Now, I want you to clear your mind. Wipe all thoughts and emotions from it. You cannot find your center if random thoughts are crowding your brain:.

Sighing, Harry attempted to clear his mind. Unfortunately, the thought, "This is pointless" kept crossing his mind. After about ten minutes of Harry failing to clear his mind, Decimare hissed calmly:

.:We are going to continue doing this until you can find your center. You cannot fight until you find your inner self:.

Harry was just a bit annoyed by this. "That's insane! I need to learn sword fighting! That way I won't be so damn helpless every time a Death Eater thinks of a new way to injure me! How am I going to learn if I just sit here all day doing nothing?" Harry knew instantly that he'd gone too far.

.:Doing _nothing_? Is that what you think you're doing? Nothing? A true fighter cannot do anything if he can't concentrate! Imagine! You are fighting a Death Eater, let's say Macnair, and you are - although at this point in your training it is highly unlikely - winning. Suddenly, Voldemort materializes in front of you. What do you do:.

"Curse him?"

.:NO! If you attempt to curse the Dark Lord, do you think Macnair would just watch on in interest? Perhaps he would even sheath his sword, and maybe even conjure up some tea for the three of you to drink? Of course not! He would cut you down in an instant:.

Harry had to admit that the snake had a point.

.:Of course I have a point! So, you are going to sit down right now, and you are going to stay there until I say so:.

Seeing no other choice, Harry sighed and collapsed on the bed.

.:Clear your mind:. The snake lectured over and over, and Harry put all his effort into doing so. Eventually, the snake's hissing faded into the background, and Harry experienced nothingness for about half a second before he realized that he'd cleared his mind. This thought, of course, destroyed the nothingness, and brought Harry back to reality. Decimare was hissing happily.

.:I told you that you could do it if you tried! Even if it was only for a second, you now know what it feels like! Once you can clear your mind, millions of possibilities are open to you...:.

As Decimare hissed on and on excitedly, Harry slowly changed into his pajamas, reveling in his accomplishment. Climbing into bed, Harry grabbed the still babbling sword and shoved it under the mattress, ignoring its disgruntled hiss. It may be an intelligent, magical sword, but it was still just a sword, and for once Harry had shown that sword that he was capable of doing something, and was not worthless, as the snake constantly told him.

It may have been his exhaustion, or perhaps a result of his victory at clearing his mind, but whatever the reason, Harry slept peacefully that night.

As Harry entered the dining room the next morning, he knew immediately that something was wrong. This feeling was emphasized by the fact that Sirius was grinning madly, and James was beaming all out. Harry cautiously sat down and began eating, keeping his eyes on his guardians, who were eyeing him almost appraisingly. Finishing off his last bit of sausage, Harry almost started when Sirius spoke for the first time that morning.

"I'd say what he really needs is a new look," he declared, eyes focused on Harry, who squirmed uncomfortably.

"Definitely," James confirmed with a nod. "But what look are we going for? Remus was the 'good boy', you were the womanizer-"

"I was not!"

"Sure you weren't," he agreed patronizingly. "And I was the loveable boy next door."

"The loveable, extremely arrogant boy next door," Sirius added helpfully.

"I was just a kid back then! Cut me some slack!"

"Fine, fine. And Lily was… I mean…" Sirius trailed off uncertainly, watching his best friend for any signs of grief.

James sighed heavily. "Look, Padfoot, as much as I hate to admit it, Lily is dead, and no amount of grieving is going to bring her back. I am trying to come to terms with her death, and that means I've got to stop crying every time you mention her. Continue with what you were saying - if we don't look fondly back on good times, then what's the point of living?"

_Who knew my dad was so wise? _Harry thought with a considerable amount of awe.

Sirius grinned happily and thumped his bespectacled friend on the back, causing James to wince in pain. "So, as I was saying, Remus was the good boy, I was the… oh, fine, the womanizer, you were the boy next door, and Lily was the goody-two-shoes beauty queen. What has Harry got going for him?"

"Well, I'd say we work with what we've got. Harry's already got the Golden boy image going for him, as well as the famous Boy-Who-Lived look. The Golden boy image can be very enticing, if used properly."

"True enough. Harry, look at me." Harry, very confused, focused on Sirius. "Good. Pretend that I'm a girl, and I'm hitting on you." Adopting a high voice, Sirius squeaked out, "Hey Harry! I really like you, and I was wondering if we could be more than friends!"

Harry stood rooted to the spot. He had absolutely no experience with girls, save for an infatuation with Cho Chang that had ended a month back. The only two girls he really knew where Hermione and Ginny, and neither had come right out and expressed their affection for Harry (not that he expected them to, of course). Plus, it was rather difficult to really get into the situation when it was his _Godfather _propositioning him.

Sirius seemed satisfied with Harry's silence. "As you can see, James, the only thing Harry really needs is confidence."

"And a few good pick up lines," James added in cheerfully. "If he gets those, he'll be Hogwarts ladies' man before long."

Harry had finally deduced what was going on. "Wait a minute, are you trying to teach me how to pick up a girl or something?"

Sirius and James grinned.

"Excellent deduction, old chap," Sirius winked. "That is _exactly_ what we are going to do. Time to work the old magic."

"Umm... old magic?" asked Harry in confusion.

James laughed. "When we first met Remus, he was a skinny little kid who was absurdly shy. Sirius here took it upon himself in fourth year to fix up his image, and ended up helping Remus earn the official Hogwarts title 'Cutest boy of 1974'."

Harry really had no idea what to say to this. He briefly considered resisting his guardians' plans, but immediately gave that up when he saw how happy Sirius and James seemed at the prospect. Any amount of discomfort on his part was worth it to see those two so cheerful. Giving a defeated sigh, Harry gathered up his courage and, wondering what he was getting himself into, announced, "Alright gentlemen, work your magic!"

"You'll definitely need to change your hair, Harry, and perhaps get your eyes fixed. Some new robes wouldn't go amiss either." Sirius had the teen up on a wooden stool in the center of a bare room that James refused to disclose the name or location of. Harry's unease had increased when his father had wrapped a blindfold around his head before leading him to what he termed the "Attitude Room".

James cleared his throat, calling everyone's attention to him. "Over the next week, I am going to teach you the rules of attracting women that the Potters have been using for centuries. They have never failed in getting a Potter the woman of his dreams. Are you ready?"

Harry pressed his eyes tightly shut. "No."

"Excellent!" James beamed. "The first, and most important, rule of the lot is that women love attitude. Got that? Attitude. Now, attitude ties in directly with your look, which we have decided is going to be the Golden Boy image. This means that your attitude is going to be an 'I can take on whatever life throws at me' attitude."

"The main idea is that you are primarily a good guy, but can handle yourself when things go wrong," Sirius continued. "This means that you need to be cool, confident, and polite. If you aren't polite, Harry, you turn from Golden Boy to Bad Boy. The bad guy is impolite; the good guy is courteous, and therefore everyone loves him. Got that?"

Harry eyed the two Marauders skeptically. "I'm not sure. You're saying that girls dig the 'good guy' image? Then why are all the girls at school constantly drooling over Draco Malfoy?"

James gave his son a conspiratorial look. "Although girls may be attracted to the Bad guy, Harry, it's the Good guy they take home."

"They take them home, alright. To bed, that is," Sirius added with a wink. Harry flushed a bright crimson, and glared at Sirius with every ounce of anger he could muster.

"Aha!" James bellowed. "That's another problem! Although the good guy is polite, they are never ashamed or embarrassed. They must be in control at all times, no matter what happens."

"But they still need to have morals," Sirius added. "Although ladies do love it when a man does something cruel and disturbing-"

"They do?" Harry asked skeptically.

James scoffed. "Of course not. They are disgusted, as any right-minded person would be. But morals are important, Harry, because without morals you turn into someone like Lucius Malfoy."

Harry shuddered. "Point taken. So, what's first?"

"Confidence, I think," Sirius decided. "Repeat after me. I AM HARRY POTTER!"

Harry stared at him. "Er… I am Harry Potter?"

James growled. "It's a statement, not a question. Say it with feeling."

"I AM HARRY POTTER!"

Sirius nodded approvingly. "Excellent. Now say, 'I AM A PERSON!"

Harry felt he could do nothing but play along. "I AM A PERSON!"

"What is the capital of Uruguay?" James demanded.

Harry stared blankly at him. "I have no idea. Why?"

Sirius shook his head. "You are confident now, Harry, remember? If you don't know, then say it!"

"I DON'T KNOW!"

"What are you doing!" James exclaimed, distraught.

"Being confident?" Harry guessed.

"Harry, son, you are the Good guy! Yelling is fine for our confidence exercises, but when you are trying to talk to a lady, you have to be slick."

"You have to be smooth," Sirius added helpfully. James glared at him.

"Aren't slick and smooth the same things in this context?" Harry wondered.

James growled. "Ignore Sirius. As I was saying, you've got to be slick, smooth, and under control. If a girl asks you something, and you shout I DON'T KNOW, she's not going to be very impressed, is she?"

"But I thought we were practicing being confidant."

"We are, but shouting is just to boost your confidence, kid. It isn't used in real life. So, let's try again. Be slick, be smooth. Pretend I'm some girl you want to hit on. What's the capital of Uruguay?"

Harry was fed up with this. They wanted slick and smooth? They'd get it. Channeling his inner Casanova, Harry reached a hand up and smoothed his hair back, gave his father a seductive smile and drawled, "Why do you want to know that, baby? Wouldn't you rather know if I'm free this Saturday night?" He ended off the performance by emitting a sexy chuckle (although he wasn't aware at the time that it was sexy).

Sirius and James gaped at him. Finally Sirius spluttered, "That was amazing! How come you don't do that all the time? If you'd been faced with a real girl, she'd be in your arms faster than a-"

"I was just joking, guys." Harry informed the two with a frown. "I wasn't serious. I would never talk to a girl like that. That's how Malfoy talks to girls."

"No, it's not!" James interjected immediately. "That's how confident guys talk to girls."

"Malfoy would probably say something more like: 'Come here, you heavenly beauty, so that I may ravish your body on this plush, antique carpet'," Sirius put in helpfully.

James glared at his friend. "It may seem like a joke now, but chicks dig a self-assured guy!"

"Especially if he's a Good guy who is polite and courteous" Sirius added. James sighed.

"I think we've already covered that point, Sirius."

"And who doesn't engage in disturbing and sadistic activities," Sirius concluded. He glowered. "Or so Mister _Know-it-all _here claims."

Harry was quite convinced that the pair of them were mad. "That's insane! If I spoke like that, all the girls would think I was some stuck up, arrogant prick!"

"That's why you have to prove them wrong by being kind and charming and all that jazz," Sirius reminded him.

"So I have to act like a complete fool, is that it?"

"When you are truly confidant with yourself, Harry, everything else will come naturally to you," James assured him. "Now, I think we need a course of action. Sirius?"

Sirius cleared his throat importantly. "In exactly one week your fifteenth birthday will arrive. At this point a grand party will be held at Grimmauld Place in your honor, a party which many females will be attending."

"We have one week to fix you up, Harry, and then we are turning you loose on that party. You are to flirt with every female you see. You will make us proud. You will not attempt to escape the room when I am talking to you!" James bellowed at Harry, who was edging towards the door.

"Are you mad? I'm not making a fool of myself in front of Hermione and the Weasleys! Imagine what Ron would say!"

"If you are good enough, you won't make a fool of yourself," Sirius reminded him.

Harry looked up at the two older men. They both had stern expressions on their faces, and seemed dead set on making Harry the ultimate ladies' man. Harry heaved another great sigh. Anything to make his guardians happy. "Alright. Transform me."

The first step in Harry's transformation was getting his now shoulder length hair tamed. Missy was delegated the task of fixing Harry's hair, a job which she accepted with great enthusiasm. Harry could therefore be found an hour later tied to a chair in the living room, eyeing Missy fearfully, who was holding a large pair of very sharp scissors, and was snipping them open and close menacingly.

Giving a war cry, Missy attacked Harry's hair viciously. Harry only had a brief second to wonder what exactly was with Missy and tying people to chairs, but before he could pursue the concept further, he cried out in pain.

"Oww! What are you doing?"

"Missy is fixing sir's hair. Missy asks sir to hold still, or sir could be injured. Not that Missy would injure sir, of course." Missy gave the bound boy a wicked grin. "Not intentionally, anyway."

Harry gulped as Missy again attacked him, and decided to just let her do her job.

Harry emerged half an hour later sporting a short, spiky look, which Missy said was the only style that would stay. Sirius, who was standing outside the door, looked him over once, smiled approvingly, and propelled him down the hall towards the Attitude Room, where James was waiting, fingering his wand impatiently.

"Sit down, and don't move," James instructed sternly. Waving his wand in an intricate pattern, James muttered a harsh sounding incantation, which contained a few choice words that led Harry to believe the spell he was casting wasn't entirely legal. A flash of blue totally obscured Harry's sight, and before he could close his eyes, another flash, this time red, burnt right through his retinas. Surprisingly enough, it didn't hurt at all. The only effect of the spell seemed to be that Harry was completely blind.

Harry stood up shakily and almost immediately toppled over, or at least he would have, had James not been there to steady him.

"That spell wasn't legal, was it?" Harry accused. "And how come I'm blind?" The reality of the situation suddenly sank in. "Oh my god! I'm _blind_!"

Sirius snickered. "The spell is an ancient… oh, alright, it's an illegal spell that corrects your vision. It's illegal because if it's done wrong, it blinds you totally. Many dark wizards used the spell to blind their enemies. Nasty spell, if done wrong."

Harry was panicking now. "And you did it correctly, right Dad?"

James chuckled. "Of course! It's me! And the blindness will pass. The spell is just resetting your eyesight."

Harry blinked, and found his vision returning. He wasn't very happy with his father or godfather, though. "And were you planning on mentioning that I could be blinded before or after you attempted to cast the spell?"

James sighed. "Harry, you have no faith in me."

Sirius grinned. "If you'd thought to ask us, we'd have answered you without hesitation."

"What! How could you-"

But Sirius and James were already halfway down the hall, guffawing loudly at the teen's plight. Harry grumbled a few choice words and trundled after them.

On July 30, the eve before Harry's birthday, he, Sirius, and James were doing a last minute run-through of his newly created attitude and image. Sirius was at the moment playing the role of a teenage girl, one who was not particularly interested in Harry. The convict-turned-schoolgirl seated himself daintily on the edge of the table, trying to appear as feminine as possible. This was the dress rehearsal. This was where James and Sirius discovered if their week of training had been successful.

Sirius heard the sound of footsteps, and attempted to appear as nonchalant as possible. With a dramatic swish of his black, designer robes, Harry James Potter swept into the room, a charming smile plastered on his face, looking for all the world like the Golden boy he was, yet one could sense that hidden, dangerous side lurking just below the wholesome surface.

His emerald green eyes were as bright as ever, especially without his thick glasses obscuring them. Harry's hair was spiked with streaks of a dark, dark blue, and everything about him, from the way he walked, to just his appearance in general, spoke volumes about his confidence and self assurance. Yes, Sirius thought proudly, he and James had worked their magic, and transformed the little Pronglet into a dark, charming young man.

Sirius pretended not to have noticed Harry, who chuckled softly and loomed up behind him. Sirius gasped in fake shock, and whirled around to find Harry watching him intently. It took all Sirius's self control not to laugh at the thought that his godson was hitting on him. _Keep a straight face! _he told himself sternly.

"Harry! What a surprise, seeing you in here!" Sirius squeaked, and to his relief found that Harry didn't laugh at the high voice, even though he probably found it very amusing. He could just imagine the boy walking up to the first gorgeous girl he saw, turning on the charm, and then collapsing in hysterics when it turned out the girl sounded like she'd just swallowed a helium balloon.

"What's surprising is that a beautiful thing like you is cooped up inside on a day like today. Shouldn't you be up in heaven with the other angels?"

Sirius stifled a groan at the corny line. "Aren't you supposed to be somewhere? Other than here, I mean?" This was a good line that girls used all the time when they clearly weren't interested.

"The only place I want to be is where you are," Harry drawled, imitating Malfoy's confidant tone perfectly. He swept a hand arrogantly through his spiky locks.

Sirius couldn't take it anymore. He cracked up, rolling on the floor laughing hysterically. He could vaguely see Harry standing above him, looking at him uncertainly, but he just couldn't stop laughing.

"Well done, Harry," James congratulated, stepping into the room, and glaring at the still laughing Sirius. "For God's sake, Padfoot, would you get up?" He turned back to his son, and thumped him on the back.

"Excellent job. You handled everything perfectly. You'll have to adjust your technique for different types of girls, of course, but you did well nonetheless. Just remember - never show a girl any weaknesses. We are men - we must be strong!" James said this in such an arrogant tone that Harry couldn't help but laugh.

"Honestly, Dad, you are so stereotypical sometimes. Look at that Muggle man Bill Gates. He's not a body builder, but he's still got a huge fortune from using his brains, not his muscles. Besides, you're not exactly Arnold Schwarzenegger yourself," he added, eyeing his father's lean muscles, which, while certainly appealing in their own way, were clearly not a result of hours of bodybuilding.

Sirius smirked. "He's got you there, Prongs old buddy. But seriously, Harry, you were amazing! You probably would've earned a kiss if I hadn't cracked up. Not that I'd be the one kissing you, of course. You're all set for tomorrow, kid. You ready to go out there and get your girl?"

"If I knew who she was? I suppose."

Sirius frowned. "Harry…"

Harry grimaced. "I mean…" He smoothed out his robes and drawled, "I don't need to 'get' a girl, my friend. The women will find me, not me them."

Sirius laughed. "Perfect." With that, he and Harry swept out of the room, robes swishing in unison, ready to face whatever the next day had in store for them. This left James in the kitchen, watching his son go with a puzzled expression.

"Who on earth is Arnold Schwarzenegger?"


	11. The Flirt

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Eleven - The Flirt

He was walking down an endless stone corridor, passing shut doors which no amount of pushing could open. He felt so trapped, yet he could not bring himself to escape the dream. There was something about this dream that urged Harry to keep traveling down the corridor, as if there was something vitally important at the end of the hall. Up ahead the corridor took a sharp turn, with only darkness beyond. Perhaps he would finally discover the secret of the endless corridor. It was not to be, unfortunately.

"Rise and shine, birthday boy!" Sirius shouted, cheerfully bashing Harry repeatedly with a large pillow. Harry jerked into wakefulness with a groan, and stared up at his godfather blankly.

"Why do you feel the need to be so cheerful? It's six o'clock in the morning! You could at least let me sleep in!"

Sirius peered down at his godson. "Why should I do that? It's so fun to annoy you!" Harry frowned.

"Maybe, but there is also the fact that, like you said, today is _my birthday_! That should count for something, don't you think?" He gave his godfather an annoyed look, before yawning, stretching, and pushing himself blearily out of bed.

"I try not to make a habit out of it," Sirius replied happily, obviously thinking he'd just said something incredibly amusing. In his half-asleep state, it took Harry a minute to figure out the joke. He'd said, "don't you think", and Sirius had replied, "I try not to make a habit…" Oh.

Sirius stared at him incredulously. "You really are tired, aren't you? It took you two minutes to get it. I mean, you usually are slow in the morning, but that was just pathetic."

The truth was that last night, after the dress rehearsal, Harry had spent several hours attempting to clear his mind and find his inner calm. He'd succeeded somewhat, and could now proudly boast that he was able to clear his mind for exactly… well, three seconds. At least it was better than nothing! The next hour or so had been spent worrying about the next day. Sure, his guardians may have transformed him into a Golden Boy who could have any girl he wanted, but inside, Harry was still disgustingly insecure, and not at all pleased that the next day he'd have to flirt with every female he saw. That would include Mrs. Weasley, Tonks, Ginny, Hermione… and God forbid, McGonagall. Harry could only guess how revolted Hermione would be with the whole thing. She'd probably accuse him of being a womanizer, stop talking to him, etc.

_Well, it's too late to change the plan now_, Harry thought sadly. James and Sirius had put in too much effort to simply back out. With that thought, Harry showered, pulled on some black designer robes, and arranged his blue-streaked hair into spikes. He gazed into the mirror, and was shocked by what he saw.

Surprisingly, Harry had not really looked at himself in a mirror since last Christmas, when he'd been desperately trying to make his hair lie flat for the Yule ball. He'd considered his hair a lost cause, and hadn't caught more than a passing glimpse of it since. Now that he got a really good look at himself, Harry suddenly realized why James and Sirius had such high hopes for Harry's "Golden boy" look. He was, there was no other word for it, drop dead gorgeous (in a manly way, of course). His green eyes shone with intelligence and a hint of danger, his lean muscles gave him a sleek yet deadly look, and when he smiled, his perfectly straight teeth powerfully reminded him of Lockhart. He allowed himself a small dose of confidence.

Adjusting his robes, Harry plastered a smile on his face, gathered his wits and courage around him like a shield, and, with a dramatic swish of his robes, swept out of the room.

"Perfecto! Excellent-e!" Sirius crowed happily. James nodded in agreement.

"You'll do your old man proud today, son. Happy Birthday." The two older men enveloped Harry in a hug, almost but not quite destroying his devil-may-care image.

Harry grinned. "Thanks. I don't suppose you've got any food?"

Missy appeared with a _pop_. "Missy has all Harry Potter's favorites, sir. Missy put the food in the third floor dining room, but Missy can easily bring it down if Master would rather eat here." She wrung her hands, anxious to please. Harry grinned.

"That would be great, thanks." With another _pop_, Missy disappeared, and returned a split second later, staggering under the weight of a-

"Table? You brought the whole table?" James laughed. Missy looked offended.

"Harry Potter asked for his breakfast, sir, so Missy brings Harry Potter his breakfast. Did Missy do something wrong?"

James then noticed that Missy was fingering a large pair of scissors with a disturbingly affectionate expression on her pointed features. He decided to preserve his fairly nicely cut hair, as well as various other body parts, and agree with the potentially violent house elf. "Whatever you say is fine, Missy." Missy nodded in satisfaction, and Disapparated from the room.

After breakfast, and a last straightening of robes, the three stepped one by one into the Entrance Hall's ornate fireplace, called out, "12 Grimmauld Place," and swooshed out of sight. Upon reaching the decrepit old house, they straightened their robes again, brushed the soot out of their hair and… collapsed in a heap.

"What the hell!" Sirius exclaimed, pulling himself up off the floor. "What happened?" His eyes roved around searchingly, before they fixed on something at around floor level. Sirius growled and leapt forward, his hands closing around a small, struggling figure. Upon closer examination, it turned out to be a very old, very nasty looking house elf.

"Just what were you thinking, crashing into us like that!" Sirius raged at the house elf, which cowered pitifully. Harry was horrified at the scene.

"Sirius! What's going on?" He yelped, pulling his father to his feet at the same time. "Are you insane! Why are you hurting it?"

James regarded the house elf for a moment, before exchanging a grim glance with Sirius. Sirius seemed infuriated, James seemed displeased, and Harry was hopelessly confused. The elf probably hadn't been looking where it was going - no reason to freak out. Harry told Sirius so, but Sirius still seemed enraged.

"It didn't run into us by accident, Harry. This elf is a vile, disgusting-"

"Perhaps it would be better to allow Harry to formulate his own opinions rather than give him biased information," Remus Lupin put in mildly, standing at the kitchen door and watching the scene with evident disapproval.

"Remus!" Harry said happily, hugging the older man fiercely. "Why did you stay at headquarters for two whole weeks? Couldn't you have at least visited?" Remus smiled wearily.

"I've been working on… things. Things that unfortunately demanded my full time and attention. But why are we talking about me? Happy Birthday, Harry! Your fifteenth, I believe."

Harry beamed. "Right. Thank god you're here, anyway. You would not believe the insane plot Dad and Sirius have thought up…" A thought suddenly struck him. "You wouldn't happen to be in on it, would you? Because you don't seem curious about the plot at all."

Remus chuckled. "I was not, as you said, 'in on the plan', but it is fairly simple to deduce what the plan was. I imagine Sirius and James decided to spiff up your image, and perhaps give you a dose of confidence while they were at it."

Harry stared at Remus incredulously. "How did you guess?"

"Well, judging by the designer robes, the new hairstyle, the lack of glasses, not to mention your new attitude, it was fairly obvious."

"My new attitude? But I haven't used it yet. I'm saving it for the party. Right now I'm just being myself… I think… am I?" he asked, hopelessly confused.

James paused momentarily in his disapproving frowning at Sirius to volunteer an answer. "This is the first time you've ever not only hugged someone willingly, but also the first time that you've actually accused someone of something without feeling guilt."

"I've done that tons," Harry told his father firmly. "This is nothing new."

Remus grinned. "You are certainly much more direct and assertive than before, that's for certain." Harry thought back to what he just said, and was forced to concede the point.

"Fine. So I've actually gained some confidence thanks to Dad and Sirius, even though it was all supposed to be an act." James looked like he was going to argue, but Remus tactfully stomped on James's foot, causing James to settle down. "What's your point?" he asked suspiciously.

Remus spread his arms innocently. "No need to get confrontational, Harry. I was just pointing out how much you've changed, is all."

Harry eyed him suspiciously. "Right." He didn't miss the glance Remus and James exchanged, or the grins that followed. Then he noticed Sirius still threatening the house elf under his breath, and remembered the question he had meant to ask five minutes ago.

"Who exactly is this elf?"

Sirius stopped muttering, and turned to Harry. "This," he growled, "is Kreacher. As you know, this is my parent's house, and Kreacher was their house elf. They died ten years ago, and I think Kreacher's gone mad from the loneliness."

Kreacher gazed hatefully up at his master, muttering, "Filthy traitor, defiling my mistress's house with mudbloods and werewolves…"

"You will not use that word in this house!" Sirius thundered. "I told you that when I gave the house to the Order a month ago! What do I have to do to make you…"

James put a calming arm on Sirius's shoulder. "Padfoot, calm down. Let it go. Kreacher's just an elf. He won't…"

Sirius sighed, and released Kreacher, who scampered out of the room. "I know. Just seeing him brought back memories…" Seeing the confused look on Harry's face, Sirius scoffed. "Oh honestly, Harry, isn't it obvious? My parents, as you may have guessed, weren't the nicest of people. They were obsessed with the purity of blood and hated Muggles with a passion. I left when I was sixteen. I just couldn't take it anymore."

Harry vaguely recalled hearing such a thing. "You went to Dad's house, right?"

James grinned. "My parents agreed to take him in."

"Lovely people, the Potters." Sirius agreed. "I haven't seen hide or hair of my parents since then. Sorry for the outburst, Kreacher just startled me."

"No problem, Padfoot," James laughed, clapping Sirius on the back. "Shall we get a move on, then? The party is waiting for its guest of honor!" The three turned to stare pointedly at Harry, who was mulling over how much better his life would have been if he'd ran away from the Dursleys back when he was younger. He gave a start when they all looked at him.

"What?" he asked in annoyance. Sirius couldn't help but sigh. "Never mind."

Harry stood outside the double doors to the dining room, waiting irritably for Sirius to finish his introductions. Listening through the doors, Harry waited until the "appropriate" time to enter. The idea of a proper introduction had been, surprisingly, Remus's idea, and James and Sirius had accepted it whole-heartedly.

"-the Boy Who Lived, the Youngest Seeker in a Century, the Once and Future King-" Harry heard laughs at the last statement. "-the one day Head Boy (we hope), and all around good guy, Harry James Potter!" Sirius shouted. Harry sighed, and, plastering a smile to his face, stepped into the room.

The party was pretty much the same as the one two weeks ago. The Weasleys, Hermione, and a bunch of Order members were present, and all stood cheering as Harry entered the room. Once the doors had shut, a loud chorus of "Happy Birthday, Harry!" swept through the room, and Harry had to work furiously to suppress the blush threatening to grace his cheeks. Blushing would definitely ruin his image.

_Ah, what the hell_. "Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen." Harry said loudly, causing the shouting to stop as the crowd turned their attentions to him. "I appreciate this effort greatly, and can assure you that you have definitely made today the best birthday of my life!" The crowd cheered, and Harry smirked.

Mrs. Weasley rushed forward and enveloped him in a hug. "You look wonderful, Harry dear."

Harry smiled charmingly.

"I don't hold a candle to you, I'm sure. That dress is absolutely beautiful, Mrs. Weasley, and it looks fabulous on you. May I enquire as to its designer?"

Mrs. Weasley, to everyone's shock, blushed furiously. "Well, darling, that would be me."

Harry made a show of gasping in shock. "I've always known you were talented, Mrs. Weasley, but you've outdone yourself on this." He flashed her a confident grin, and she smiled happily.

"Well, thank you dear. You certainly are in good spirits today."

Harry grinned in reply. "That's because I'm in a presence of such a lovely woman." Mrs. Weasley was completely flustered, and had no idea what to say.

As the crowd went back to whatever they'd been doing previously, Harry sent a wink in Sirius and James's direction, who were chatting with Nymphadora Tonks, a young, accident prone Auror. James winked back, and made a motion as if to say, "Go and get 'em, tiger". Harry flashed his father one more confident grin, and stalked away to find his next prey.

Hmm… McGonagoll. "Good day, ma'am. How are you?" Harry asked her, smiling. She frowned at him.

"Fine Potter, and you?"

"Wonderful, thanks. Speaking of wonderful, you certainly look it today." He winked, and swept away with a swish of his robes. Had he stayed, he would have seen a tear roll down her face, and a whisper of, "He's just like his father." Little did Harry know, James had spent hours relentlessly flirting his way out of trouble with McGonagall. It had become something of a game to the two of them - whether James could flatter McGonagall enough before she regained her posture and put him in detention. It seemed that Harry would be continuing his father's legacy.

Meanwhile, Harry was searching the room for his next target. Aha! Hermione! The problem with that, unfortunately, was that he suspected Ron had feelings for Hermione, and Harry had no intention of moving in on Ron's girl. That just wouldn't be gentlemanly. Then again, it was just a little harmless fun, right?

Hermione and Ron smiled as he approached. "Happy Birthday mate!" the redhead crowed. "You look great! Your dad treating you alright?"

"Excellent, actually. I'm so glad he's back; I don't know what I'd do without him."

"Probably something dangerous and ill-advised, knowing you," Hermione put in, hugging her best friend fiercely. Harry turned his attention to the bushy-haired bookworm.

"Well, thank you Hermione, it's always nice to know you have such confidence in me."

Hermione frowned, and said, "It's true and you know it, Potter." Harry laughed and ruffled her hair.

"Harry!"

Harry grinned innocently. "What?"

"You mussed my hair! It took me… well… alright, it didn't take me long at all to fix it this morning, but still!"

Harry decided it was time to try out his new personality. "It doesn't matter how long it takes you to fix your hair, it still looks absolutely beautiful," he told her seriously, green eyes staring intensely into hers.

Hermione looked a tad flustered. "Well, thank you Harry, although I don't agree-"

Harry cut across her. "Hermione, you are beautiful, no matter what you think. Seriously. Any bloke would love for you to be his girlfriend." He rounded off the performance with a wink.

Hermione didn't seem to buy it, but Ron certainly did. "Mate, are you hitting on Hermione?" he asked incredulously. Hermione eyed Harry momentarily, and almost started when he gave a sexy chuckle. "I don't know. I think the real question is whether Hermione wants to be hit on or not."

Hermione, having caught on, replied seductively, "Hermione thinks that it depends on whom the one is who's doing the hitting." Ron turned bright red and stalked away. It only took a moment for Harry and Hermione to break up into helpless laughter.

"Wha - wha - what was that?" Hermione asked, slightly out of breath from the laughing. "Were you serious?"

Harry immediately plastered a smile on his face and drawled, "How could I not be, angel?".

Hermione grinned.

"What exactly are you up to, Harry? Was this your father's idea? I know he had a reputation of being incredibly charming at school."

Harry was startled. "He did? I didn't know that."

"Sure he did. He was the most sought after guy in the school. Everyone knows that. Although, judging from your expression, apparently you don't."

Harry shook his head. Then he frowned. "How did you see through my act? I thought I had it down to perfection." Hermione grinned again, flicking his nose.

"You git, I'm your best friend."

"So is Ron, and he didn't catch on."

"Oh, I doubt anyone but those who really know you will catch on. Technically Ron would fall into that category, but, then again, he's Ron. Ron doesn't have the emotional depth of a teaspoon." She sighed, looking slightly saddened by her own words. Harry smiled sympathetically.

"He'll come around, Hermione, don't worry. Now, when you said that people who know me will catch on, who did you mean?"

"Well, I'm surprised Mrs. Weasley didn't, but she's so nice I suppose it was to be expected. You don't really have any close female friends, so I guess you are home free. Oh, except Ginny, of course."

"Ginny?" Harry asked in confusion. "But I barely know her! I've only talked to her a few times!"

"Yes, but she's been worshipping you since your first year. She knows you very well Harry, even if you never noticed her."

"Hey! I noticed her! I just found her worshipping and stuttering kind of annoying, that's all."

Hermione sighed, and clasped her hands together as if beseeching God's guidance. "Well, she's over you now, so you shouldn't lose any sleep over it."

"But I didn't lose any sleep over Ginny."

"Exactly." Hermione snapped, stalking off after Ron. Harry couldn't help but think that the encounter hadn't gone very well. Or perhaps Hermione had given him some valuable insights into the minds of fan girls. Harry wasn't sure which was true, and wasn't sure that he wanted to find out.

"This cake is delicious, Mrs. Weasley. You truly are a talented cook!" Harry exclaimed appreciatively, savoring the last bites of the monstrous chocolate cake she'd baked for him.

Mrs. Weasley beamed. "Well thank you, dear. You certainly are complimentary today."

Harry winked. "Only with you, Mrs. Weasley."

She blushed. "Goodness me but you've gotten very charming. I suppose it's your father's doing?"

Harry grinned. "You could say that. But seriously, this cake is delicious."

"Well, don't give me all the credit, my dear, Ginny deserves some too. She helped me make it, after all."

"You're kidding! I didn't know Ginny could bake!"

Mrs. Weasley eyed him beadily. "There are lot of things you don't know about my daughter, Harry Potter."

Harry gulped and backed away from the Weasley matriarch, who gave him a warm smile as if nothing had happened, and turned to chat with her husband. It occurred to him that he really didn't know anything about Ginny. He'd never taken the time or the effort. Well, he'd just have to correct that, wouldn't he?

Harry stood on tiptoes as he scanned the crowd for Ginny's flaming red hair. There she was, off in the corner talking to… Fred and George. Would they really corrupt their own sister? It appeared so. Although, judging by the fact that she was throwing around just as many dirty jokes as they were, Harry wondered if perhaps it was she who was corrupting them.

Sidling up to the giggling redhead, Harry turned on the charm. "Baby, somebody had better call God, because he's missing an angel." Giving his robes a dramatic sweep for good measure, he perched himself on the armchair, giving the girl a full view of his muscular physique, should she care to gawk.

She gawked, but it wasn't an awed kind of gawk. More like a baffled stare.

"Are you okay, Harry?"

"Absolutely," Harry drawled. "Your charm and personality were so bright that I couldn't think straight, darling"

Fred and George snickered, prompting Ginny to smack them. She turned back to Harry and, to his complete shock, flashed him an aggressive smile. "I'm so sorry, but I lost my phone number. Could I have yours?"

Harry stared at her in shock. He had no idea what to do when a girl responded to his pick up line with another pick up line. Ginny giggled at the expression of bewilderment on his face.

"I'm sorry Harry, but I couldn't resist."

"That's alright. Did I really sound that stupid?"

"Well, I know you very well, so to me it sounded kind of dumb coming from your mouth." Ginny brightened. "But I've seen lines like that work loads of times, so I'd say you've got a fair chance of finding Miss Right."

"Miss Right?"

Ginny smiled. "The girl who is right for you. You know! Miss Right… get it?" Harry still looked completely non-plussed. "Oh well, just forget it. Besides, you don't want to waste your lines on me, Harry."

"Why not?"

"I've already got a boyfriend."

"Since when? I had no idea!"

She snickered. "Apparently not."

As Ginny swept off, Harry was reminded forcibly of the pictures he had of his mother. They were both petite, with pale skin, freckles, and long, beautiful red hair. What an interesting coincidence.

Two hours later, the party was still in full swing, and Harry needed to get out. He wasn't claustrophobic, but being stuck in a room for that long was getting a bit old. "I'm going for a walk," he yelled at Ron over the blaring music. Ron waved a hand in acknowledgement, and went back to his argument with Hermione.

_Honestly_, Harry thought as he walked down the quiet front hall. _Ron and Hermione… they're so infuriating sometimes! I know it's none of my business; I just wish they'd get together before Hermione gives up on him and dates a guy who'll actually admit his feelings_.

Without realizing the possible danger, Harry strolled out of Grimmauld Place and down the street into a quiet park nearby. It never occurred to him that there was a reason why there was a Fidelius charm on the house. He was so lost in his confused thoughts on Voldemort, women, his father, etc., that his feet carried him right out of the house – the house filled with competent wizards and witches able to help him if someone tried to attack him – without a second thought.

Swinging on a swing in the deserted park, Harry forced himself to clear his mind like Decimare had taught him to. This time he managed, and nearly twenty minutes passed before he came out of the trance-like state he'd been in. During that trance he was oblivious to the world, which meant that he never saw the small, toad-like woman who walked through the park, saw him sitting on the swing, and ran off cackling with glee.

He was therefore completely surprised when, ten minutes later, two Dementors materialized out of nowhere and swooped towards him menacingly.


	12. Dementors

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Twelve - Dementors

Swinging on a swing in the deserted park, Harry forced himself to clear his mind like Decimare had taught him to. This time he managed, and nearly twenty minutes passed before he came out of the trance-like state he'd been in. During that trance he was oblivious to the world, which meant that he never saw the small, toad-like woman who'd walked through the park, saw him sitting on the swing, and ran off cackling with glee.

He was therefore completely surprised when, ten minutes later, two Dementors seemingly materialized out of nowhere and swooped towards him menacingly.

Almost immediately an intense wave of cold swept over Harry, drowning out his senses. A faint screaming echoed in his mind - his mother's voice - slowly growing louder and louder as the Dementors approached. Harry leapt to his feet, drawing his wand hastily from his pocket.

The Dementors couldn't be more than twenty feet away by now. The nightmarish creatures shrieked into the night air, sending a chill down Harry's spine. He looked around desperately for an escape route, but the swing was in the corner of the park.

He was trapped. It was time for an act of desperation.

Summoning the happiest memory he could think of, Harry waved his wand and cried out, "_Expecto Patronum_!" A huge, silvery stag burst forth from the end of his wand, lowered it's antlered head, and charged at the Dementors. Ramming its antlers into one of the Dementors' middles, the stag forced the pair back a step. It backed up, and snorted warningly at the pair, who seemed to consider their options and, defeated, were forced to flee.

As the Dementors swooped away, Harry's senses and happiness returned in a wonderful rush. He then realized how draining the encounter had been, and sank to the ground in an attempt to recover his strength. As Harry sat and recuperated, a sudden thought struck him. He'd just used an amazingly powerful spell in the middle of a Muggle area, and, more importantly, didn't have the protection of Potter Manor to shield his magical aura. There were no witnesses, save him. No one would believe him if he claimed to have used the magic in self-defense.

A sudden noise jolted Harry out of his contemplation, and he scrambled to his feet (albeit slowly, due to his exhaustion), looking around wildly. It sounded a great deal like footsteps... of more than one person. That meant it was either the Ministry or the Order, and Harry wasn't sure which one he'd prefer.

"Harry?" a man's voice rang out through the empty park. "Where are you, son? There are Dementors around; we need to get back to Grimmauld Place _now_!" Harry heaved a sigh of relief.

He stepped out from behind a large oak tree, and came face to face with James Potter, who looked greatly relieved to see him. James rushed forward and hugged his son tightly. Then he stepped back and fixed his son with a piercing gaze. "You are never to wander off without permission again! Who knows where you could've gone!"

Harry frowned. "I didn't 'wander off', I went for a walk and told Ron before leaving."

James scowled. "You might've checked first to make sure he was listening to you! When I realized you'd gone missing, Sirius had to drag the information out of Ron with a memory recall spell. Do you realize what could've happened?"

"I imagine I could've run into, say, two Dementors." Harry said dryly. James paled a bit.

"Did you say, 'two'?

"Oh yes. And if we continue our 'what if' game, I'd guess that the Dementors approached from the North East, stopped by this exact tree, and then fled for some unknown reason. Am I close?"

James was definitely pale now. "Right on, actually. That's what Mundungus said, anyway, and he's the one who spotted and tracked their movements. After sending a message back to base control, of course." He grasped his son by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. "Harry, son, please tell me that you didn't run into them. Please tell me it was some other, of-age wizard."

Harry sighed. "Wish I could, dad, but I'm afraid not. I was… er… day-dreaming, and I didn't notice them until they'd already cut off my escape route. I'm so sorry." He winced. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

"You're in trouble, but at least you aren't dead," Sirius proclaimed, hurrying over to the pair. His lined face looked graver than usual, although there was a touch of relief in it as well. "Securing the perimeter," he said to James by way of explanation. "I don't know how Dumbledore is going to smooth this one over."

Harry had had enough of this. "Look, I know I shouldn't have used magic, and that there weren't any witnesses, but at least I'm alive, right? From the way you two are acting, it's as if it would have been better to have let the Dementors kill me."

Sirius and James exchanged grim glances. James, one hand still on Harry's shoulder, guided his son forward as he spoke. "There is nothing more important than your life, Harry, please know that. You know that we care about you."

Harry sighed. "Yeah, I know that. I just don't get your attitudes. There can't be that much trouble over one case of underage magic!"

"On the contrary, Harry," Sirius stated, loping easily along beside Harry. "_Expecto Patronum_ is a powerful spell, and done in a Muggle area, with no witnesses - I'm afraid that the courts just aren't going to believe us."

"Us?"

James scoffed, and a smile lit his face for the first time. "Of course, 'us'. You didn't think we'd leave you to take on the Ministry all by yourselves, did you?"

"Oh. Right," said Harry, feeling foolish.

"Back on track," Sirius continued. "There is one very important factor that you don't know, Harry, and that we forgot to tell you. Then again, it only happened yesterday, so you can't blame us, but-"

"Are you going to tell me, or what?"

"Oh, yes. Cornelius Fudge has been… well, he's been reinstated as Minister of Magic."

Harry stopped dead in his tracks. "_What_?"

James winced. "The Auror's council changed their minds, apparently, and somehow they got the Wizengamot to back them. Fudge is back."

"But how could they? How could Moody?"

Sirius smiled grimly. "Moody was kicked off the council for 'having a bad attitude'. Load of rubbish, if you ask me. Fudge probably bribed the Auror's council."

Harry grimaced. "I can see your point. Fudge hates me after the Tournament last year, and now with your public declaration of Voldemort's return… I'll be expelled in an instant."

"It gets worse," James said darkly. "Voldemort hasn't shown his face ever since the confrontation we had with the Minister two weeks back. People are starting to doubt his return. They are starting to believe that Hell addled my eyes, so that I didn't see what I thought I did."

"You mean the Ministry is starting to think that he isn't back? They're going to step down on security? They can't do that!" Harry said loudly.

"What security?" Sirius snorted. "I personally doubt there will be a difference. It's not like the Ministry has done anything since they publicly announced Voldemort was back."

"No, no, no! You don't understand! I _know_ Voldemort! I know what he's doing, and he's fooling everyone!" Harry shouted, this time in real panic. They _had_ to understand. Although Harry didn't really know what the Dark Lord was thinking, he'd certainly met up and fought with him more than enough times to at least guess what was on the man's mind. Most suddenly, Harry remembered the dream concerning Pettigrew stealing the shield from Voldemort. This only further boosted Harry's panic. "The Ministry mustn't step down security! This is exactly what Voldemort is waiting for!"

James placed a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder, trying to restrain the look of suffering crossing his face. This fifteen year old boy, through experience alone, knew more about the Dark Lord than the entire Ministry of Magic - could you get any more tragic than that? "I agree with you, Harry, but with Fudge in charge, the Ministry won't listen-"

"THEN WE'LL MAKE THEM LISTEN!" Harry bellowed in rage. "THEY ARE ENDANGERING THE LIVES OF THE ENTIRE EFFING WORLD!"

"HARRY!" Sirius shouted, cutting off the boy mid-rant. "We know that, you know that, and the Order at least has some clue. As much as I wish we could, we can't! We don't have control of the Ministry, and we won't have it any time soon! We can't rely on the Ministry!" This seemed to take the fire out of Harry, who would have slumped onto a nearby street curb if he hadn't already been supported by his father's arm.

"Then who can we rely on?"

"Dumbledore."

Harry's eyes lit up. He'd almost forgotten about Dumbledore. Then again, after the man had rescued him from the Dursleys, he had made no effort to contact Harry. He had even visited the Manor at times, but only when Harry was otherwise occupied. Harry had begun to believe the man either didn't care about him anymore, or was simply keeping information from him in an attempt to 'spare him pain'. That was more often than not the excuse Dumbledore would give Harry after finally revealing some small yet ever so crucial piece of information to him. Harry's eyes closed.

"Dumbledore. Right. Yay."

Sirius sighed. "Now Harry, I know that you're a bit annoyed that he's been avoiding you-"

"He's been _what_? I knew he wasn't trying to contact me, but purposely avoiding me? Oh, this is too rich."

"Did I say that? I didn't say that!" Sirius denied hastily, avoiding James's glare.

"Oh yes you did!"

"WOULD YOU TWO BE QUIET!"

Harry and Sirius immediately shut up and, in unison, winced and covered their ears. Once having determined his father wasn't going to yell anymore, Harry gingerly removed his hands and forced a small smile to his face.

"Look Sirius, I know I'm being out of line, and I'm sorry. I just get really annoyed when people keep things from me."

"They only do that to keep you safe," James said sternly.

"Oh really? Then why, father, do I always find out what's going on? Every. Single. Time. When has keeping things from me helped in the slightest? Look at last year! Because of things kept from me, Voldemort came back! Oh, well done! Bravo! The world is completely doomed, but at least _poor little Harry_ is safe!"

Sirius and James shared one more look. James faced his son. "Harry. I understand exactly what you are saying. You want to know what's going on. That's not too much to ask, right?"

"No, it's really not."

"Fine. If you promise to stop freaking out, then once we get back to Grimmauld Place, Padfoot and I will tell you everything… well, everything we can without Dumbledore putting a ransom on our heads. Deal?"

Harry heaved a very heavy sigh. "You promise?"

Sirius grinned. "'Course we do, right Prongs? Now, can we get back? I need food, and my hair is undoubtedly a mess."

"And once we get back, you two can sort out my Dementor problem," Harry grumbled.

James smiled. "That's right. Don't worry, we'll sort it out. No worries. Well, some worries, but… never mind. Say, just out of curiosity, where exactly did this conversation start?"

The three thought back. Then Sirius's face brightened. "We were glad you weren't dead, we told you that Fudge is Minister and they're about to step down defenses against Voldemort and… uh… oh! Then you exploded because we, and, more specifically, the Order, were keeping things from you!"

"You sound pretty happy about that," Harry noted.

"Think happy thoughts! Padfoot was just happy that his memory hasn't completely failed him, right?"

Sirius, who for some reason was scanning the sky, gave a start. "What? Oh, absolutely!" He glanced nonchalantly up at the sky again, and then added, "Why don't we hurry now? It's getting late, you know." Harry looked up at the sky to try and see what was bothering Sirius, but as he was shuffled away he could find absolutely nothing out of place.

By the time they reached Grimmauld Place, Harry was asleep on his feet. The fight with the Dementors, and the shouting match that followed, had completely drained him of energy, and it was all he could do to make it to the living room sofa. James and Sirius watched as their charge drifted off into a peaceful sleep, neither guessing that Harry would have more than just simple dreams that night.

James turned to his best friend, his youthful face creased with worry. "Do you think he'll be alright, Padfoot?"

Sirius regarded his best friend somberly. It had never struck him so profoundly how… _young_ James was. He had been so ecstatic to see his friend alive that he'd completely missed the fact that James was still twenty years old. He was barely an adult physically, yet mentally, Sirius couldn't even begin to imagine. The man had sacrificed himself to save his wife and child - and then spent fourteen years in Hell as a reward. Hell. Sirius had no idea how that must have affected his friend, and he sure as hell wasn't about to ask him.

James cleared his throat. Sirius had that far-away look in his eyes again, and damned if James would let that continue. Sirius had suffered enough on his behalf. He coughed softly. It was enough to snap Sirius out of it.

"Sorry?"

James sighed. "Forget it Padfoot. Don't worry. Everything's fine. Really." Sirius smiled sadly, and James couldn't help himself. His life was so insane, and yet all could think about was how thankful he was to be alive. Talk about a messed up life. Against his better judgment, James allowed himself to shed one small tear. Sirius looked like he was about to join him.

"Geez, Prongs, turn on the waterworks, why don't you?" Sirius grumbled, patting his friend sympathetically on the shoulder. This show of caring only caused James to cry harder.

"I miss her so much," he sobbed.

Sirius just barely managed to hold back his own tears. He had to be strong for his grieving companion. His fellow Marauder. His best friend in the world. As he had in Azkaban, Sirius couldn't take the storm of emotions swelling through him, and shifted to canine form. James sniffed, and then let out a small laugh as he ruffled Padfoot's head.

Ever so slowly, the pair drifted off to sleep, right in the middle of the floor, James's head resting on Padfoot's furry stomach. It was in this position that Remus found the duo a few hours later, and, looking at them, as they lay so peacefully in sleep, Remus finally realized, truly realized, what he'd been fighting for all this time. Peace.

He was in a forest. It was large, and ancient, and Harry realized he knew this place. Over the past two weeks he'd been seeing flashes of it, so brief that he couldn't possibly piece them together. Until now. As he looked up, Harry could make out a range of mountains that stretched as far as the eye could see. He knew this place too. Those were the Alps - he'd learned about them in Geography in grade five.

Well, at least he had some idea of where he was, even if it was a dream.

A sudden movement caught his eye. Something about his size, maybe smaller, running as fast as it could through the trees. Harry heard a yell, a crash, and muffled words. Although he couldn't make out what it was saying, the identity of the voice was as clear as day. Wormtail.

Hate surged through Harry, and he was tempted to march forward and murder the rat where it stood, until he remembered that it would do no good, as this was all a dream. Fine, then. Perhaps Harry could at least see what the rat was up to, now that he'd apparently gone on the run with that bizarre shield he'd stolen.

Harry edged forward, and peered around a large, twisted oak. Sitting in the middle of a clearing, clutching his toe and muttering angrily was Peter Pettigrew. Although his eyes darted wildly up, down, left, and right, they always seemed to return immediately to the package by his side. The shield. The shield that Voldemort, for some strange reason, was after.  
"Running and running, for what?" Pettigrew muttered, shoving his swollen toe back into his shoe. "For redemption, to prove I want to come back to the light - nonsense! They'll never believe me. What's the use?" Chuckling, he shifted to the side and pulled a flask of water and a few biscuits from his travel bag. "Can't let Him have it, that's why, Peter. Damn to _hell_ whoever thought up Morals!"

Harry edged closer. The shield was wrapped in cloth, but he could make out a bit of its silver, engraved rim. There was the edge of a pattern that seemed to be the rays of the sun, and a bit of writing, although not in a language Harry recognized. Still, some clues were better than none, so Harry quickly set about committing the strange words to memory.

By the time Wormtail was up and ready to move on, despite it being the middle of the night, Harry had all ten words remembered perfectly. He couldn't even try pronouncing them - they were too strange.

As Wormtail vanished from Harry's sight, and he felt that familiar tug that signaled the end of the vision, Harry couldn't help but let out a frustrated sigh. Couldn't life ever be easy, just this once? He knew the answer, of course. He was the Boy-Who-Lived, and it was his solemn duty to do things in the most difficult and time-consuming way possible.

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to:

Athenakitty

SilverKnight7

Patricia Black

Serendepetee

Amandinka

Thanks for reviewing!


	13. Aftermath

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter 13 - Aftermath

"Owww," Harry moaned, rubbing his eyes blearily, "Sirius, get off my legs, you overgrown mutt." If the large black dog currently squishing his legs heard Harry, he gave no indication of planning to move any time soon. _I don't have time for this_, Harry thought. _I was attacked by Dementors, fell asleep on an extremely uncomfortable sofa, and am now probably going to be murdered by Mrs. Weasley when she finds out about my latest near death experience_. "MOVE!"

Padfoot fell off Harry with a yelp, and with a _pop_ transformed into Harry's godfather Sirius, who glared up at Harry as best he could, seeing as he was still half asleep. "It's not very nice to wake up your one and only Godfather so cruelly," he huffed, climbing to his feet. "Young people have no respect for their elders these days." Sirius said this so arrogantly that Harry couldn't help but laugh, which was probably what Sirius was going for anyways.

Satisfied, Sirius plopped down beside his godson, who was tenderly touching his aching back. "Remind me _never_ to sleep on this sofa again. It's rock hard!"

"Well, it's not like you gave me a chance to tell you. You were out like a light before we even got into Grimmauld Place. You're lucky James and I didn't leave you out on the doorstep," Sirius told him pointedly, still slightly miffed at being woken up so abruptly.

Harry merely scoffed - he was used to Sirius's jokes by now. Yawning, the teen clambered to his feet, taking in the room around him. The living room was rather large, decorated in fading green and silver - the ideal sitting room for Dark Wizard wanna-bees. Harry once again pitied Sirius for having to have lived in such a miserable place for the first sixteen years of his life.

A thundering sound, rather like footsteps, brought Harry out of his musings, and he wasn't terribly surprised to see Hermione and Ron dash into the room. Apparently, they had not been informed of Harry's brush with death until a few moments ago. Harry had a feeling that things were about to get pretty hectic.

Hermione gasped, "Harry! Oh, are you alright? Your dad's just told us everything-"

"-we woke up a few minutes ago-" added Ron, looking a bit pale at the prospect of Dementors sucking out his best friend's soul.

"-but we couldn't believe you were okay until we saw you!"

"You'd think they could have told us earlier! You were attacked over twelve hours ago!"

Harry grinned, touched at how worried his friends were about him. "Well, that's adults for you. Everything is on a 'need to know' basis with them. I suppose you knowing about my predicament wasn't necessary."

"Remus's fault," James announced brightly, entering the room with a disturbingly cheerful smile on his face. Everyone turned to look at him, slightly shocked by the amount of happiness he was showing. "What?" he asked in defense, "My son escaped the fate of becoming a soul-less shell. Aren't I allowed to be happy?"

"Not this early in the morning," Sirius grumbled.

As everyone voiced their agreement, Fred and George Apparated into the room with a _crack_, knocking Ron into the half-destroyed grand piano behind him. As the twins helped an enraged Ron to his feet, he shouted furiously, "Has it ever occurred to you that every single time you apparate, you always manage to land on _me_? That can't be coincidence!" By the glittering in the twins' eyes, Harry was fairly certain that it was no coincidence.

Fred and George took in the scene before them, grinning in a slightly scary way, before Fred threw himself onto Harry, squeezing the poor boy ferociously. "Oh Harry! I was so _worried_! I thought you'd died! When I heard those mean, nasty Dementors almost killed you, I nearly fainted!" To illustrate his point, Fred 'fainted' dramatically into George's arms, who was working mightily to keep a straight face.

George gave Hermione a wink. "Remind you of anyone, Hermione?"

Hermione scowled at the two redheaded pranksters. "Oh, very funny. Make fun of me because I was worried about my best friend. He was attacked by Dementors, for God's sake!" She swelled up ominously, seemingly unaware that everyone else in the room were attempting mightily to keep from laughing.

Just as Harry thought things couldn't get any more awkward, they did. Ginny, who had been walking past the room, presumably on her way to the kitchens, paused in shock when she heard Hermione's words. As Hermione began to berate Fred and George for their lack of sensitivity, Ginny stormed into the room, hissing furiously. She marched straight up to Harry and, with everyone's eyes now on her, slapped him across the face. Hard.

_Well_, Harry thought as he rubbed his aching cheek, _there's one girl I don't ever want mad at me, ever, ever again_.

"Attacked! By Dementors, no less! And you couldn't even be bothered to tell me! Are you insane? You should have been more careful, you ignorant prat!" Ginny snarled.

"Someone's got PMS," Ron whispered under his breath. He apparently said it a bit too loudly, because everyone winced as Ginny whirled around furiously and smacked him even harder than she had Harry. As Ron stumbled into the nearby wall, Ginny growled in a rather bestial manner and stalked out of the room, muttering something that sounded rather like "idiotic boys".

James stared after her in admiration. The girl was so much like Lily it was uncanny. Beside him, Sirius whispered in awe, "Remind me never to piss that one off."

Following the Ginny incident, Harry, James and Sirius beat a hasty retreat back to the Potter Manor. When Harry tumbled out of the fireplace into the entrance hall, the first thing he saw was the slightly deranged elf Missy, holding a small stack of letters, which had apparently been delivered overnight.

"Many owls came with lots of letters," Missy informed them un-necessarily. "Missy threatened to trim off their feathers, Master James, sir, and they left." She held out the letters, which James accepted with a nod of thanks. As the three men trooped into the kitchen, James shuffled through the letters. What he saw almost made him drop them in shock.

"What's the matter?" Sirius enquired as Harry asked at the same time, "Who're they from?"

James groaned, confirming Harry's fears. "The Ministry of Magic."

With a collective sigh, the three collapsed onto the kitchen stools, and crowded around as James hesitantly opened the first letter. He unfolded the crisp parchment, scanned it, and proceeded to utter a few choice words that had Harry blushing furiously. Once all three letters were read, Harry and Sirius immediately demanded a summary.

"The first letter was from the Ministry, expelling Harry for illegal use of underage magic."

"But there were Dementors!" Harry protested.

"I know that, but apparently the Ministry doesn't. The second letter mentions Dumbledore having convinced Fudge to take back the expulsion. You are now temporarily suspended, and have to go to a hearing on August 2nd. That's tomorrow, I think."

Harry gave a sigh of relief. That wasn't too bad - as long as he could prove the Dementors were actually present, that was.

"And the third is from Arthur Weasley telling you to be careful and not use any more magic. Outside of the Potter Manor, that is."

"Good man, Arthur Weasley," Sirius commented.

"So it would seem. So," James continued, surveying Harry over his stylish silver spectacles. "You have a hearing tomorrow. That doesn't give us much time to prepare."

"Us?"

Sirius punched his Godson lightly on the shoulder. "We went over this yesterday, kid. From now on, it's always us."

"Until you start dating," James added impishly, "at which point I'd really rather it wasn't 'us'. Although it would be rather interesting - I'm quite interested in the prospect of a four-some, myself." Harry blushed brightly and leveled a death glare at his father, who laughed and held up his hands as if to say, 'Don't kill me'.

"All immaturity aside," Sirius stated pompously, "we should get back to the task at hand." Harry was quite astonished at his godfather's rare display of maturity, and completely forgot his previous embarrassment. "We need to prepare a case by tomorrow, and that doesn't leave us much time."

"So?"

"So we need to go work!" Sirius said triumphantly, forcing the Potters off their stools and herding them towards the library. Three minutes later, the three could be found sitting around a large, round oak table, reading books and scratching occasional notes on parchment with their quills.

Time passed - lunch, and then dinner, came and went - and soon it was too late to continue. There was also the fact that Sirius was bored out of his mind, and had taken to charming spare quills to dance the tango. Harry watched in interest as a 'male' quill twirled a 'female' quill around their dance floor (which was a copy of A History of Magic). Sirius laughed as he prodded a second dancing couple closer to the original couple and, with a resounding crack, the two couples crashed into each other.

"That's really rather childish, you realize," James commented as he replaced a book on a shelf, watching as the two 'male' quills began a ferocious fistfight. "That is impossible, you know. Quills don't have fists; they can't possibly have a fistfight."

Sirius snorted in disbelief. "Sometimes I think you spent too much time around dear Muggle-born Lily, Prongs. It's magic. Go with it." He gave a huge yawn, and checked his watch absently, jumping when he read the time. "Good Lord! It's past nine! You should be in bed, Harry! It's a big day tomorrow! Must get your beauty sleep!"

It was Harry's turn to snort. "You can stop treating me like a little kid, Sirius. I'm fifteen years old; I'll stay up however late I like."

He yawned widely. Sirius and James exchanged amused grins.

"Oh, fine," Harry groaned. "I'll see you two clowns in the morning." Giving his guardians a parting wave, Harry exited the library and slowly made his way upstairs, taking a concealed staircase beside the sitting room in order to avoid Missy, who was prowling about carrying a rather lethal looking plant pruner. That house elf was getting downright scary.

When Harry entered his room, he immediately identified the feeling he'd been having all day - that he'd forgotten something. That something became fairly obvious when, collapsing on his gigantic bed, Harry heard a hiss of irritation. Decimare. Reaching under the mattress, Harry quickly retrieved the deadly black long sword. The snake engraved on the hilt hissed furiously at him.

.:You completely disappear for two days, undoubtedly forgetting to do your training exercises, and then you waltz in here as if you rule the world. Where's your sense of commitment? If you intended on leaving for a long time, then you could have at least told me, let alone brought me! But no, like the typical self-centered teenager you are, you completely ignore everything I've taught you-:.

"I get the point!" Harry snapped. When the snake fixed him with a piercing glare, Harry immediately lowered his voice. "It wasn't my fault, okay? It was just supposed to be a birthday party - a few hours long at most! - but then I was attacked by Dementors, and-"

.:_Dementors_:. Decimare hissed angrily, .:Excuses, excuses, excuses! I don't care if you were attacked by Salazar Slytherin himself! You made a commitment when you agreed to be my master, and you'd better live up to it:.

Harry sighed. "I know, I know. I get the picture. Excuses are meaningless; what happens, happens."

.:Exactly! It's no one's fault but your own. I heard that insane elf - Missy? - going on about you wandering around in Muggle parks after dark. Brilliant move, master! You deserve everything that happens to you:.

"I said I get the picture," Harry muttered, sinking down onto the bed with his head in his hands. He hadn't really thought about the upcoming Ministry trial until now. What if he wasn't cleared? What if he were expelled? Decimare seemed to sense his depressing thoughts, and he appeared to know the remedy to them as well.

.:Stop moping around, you lazy child. Battles cannot be won if the soldiers are all cowering in their tents! Get up, and practice your blocking. If you try hard, I may even teach you a basic attack formula:.

The snake was obviously trying to cheer him up; Harry had been practicing blocking for upwards of three weeks, and the prospect of learning to hit something rather than blocking immaterial foes was quite promising. Harry set about his exercises with great enthusiasm, and, as Decimare predicted, he quickly forgot about tomorrow's trial.

Decimare was evidently satisfied with Harry's progress, because he spent the rest of the session taking Harry through some basic attack patterns, which Harry failed miserably at executing. Even though the snake berated him for every mistake he made, Harry still felt that he'd definitely improved over the past three weeks, and allowed himself a small dose of confidence. By the end of the session, Harry was covered in sweat, completely exhausted, and in desperate need of a long, long shower.

.:Excellent effort tonight:. Decimare hissed in approval to Harry, who had just gotten into the shower. .:You have definitely progressed far in three weeks. Although I hate to say it, you may not actually be the most hopeless student I've trained:.

Harry grinned as he scrubbed shampoo into his hair, which was much easier to care for now that it was shorter. "Thanks… I think."

.:Not a problem:. Decimare replied loftily. .:Speaking of which, how is your meditation going:.

Harry finished washing, changed into his pajamas, and began brushing his teeth, all the time considering Decimare's question. Finally spitting out the excess toothpaste, Harry turned to the sword lying on a nearby scarlet armchair, and fixed it with a pensive frown.

"I managed to clear my mind for… I dunno… it must have been at least ten minutes."

.:Oh, very good:.

"Yes, but you never mentioned that I'd have no idea of what was going on around me while meditating. You know those Dementors I told you about? I didn't realize their presence until they were practically standing next to me!"

Decimare sighed. .:You are new to meditation, and you have not become accustomed to your inner self. With enough practice, you will be able to touch your inner self, while at the same time being aware of the world surrounding you:.

"And until I reach that point?"

Decimare grinned. .:Practice:.

"Joy," Harry groaned. He slid the sword back into its scabbard, stowed it under the bed, and slipped under the silk covers. He was too tired to work on his Animagus transformation that night. Perhaps after the trial… _that would be good_… Harry thought, as he slipped away into the realm of dreams.

When Harry woke up the next morning, the first thing he did was to write an entry in his dream diary - the small book he'd procured at the beginning of the summer to write his visions of Voldemort in. The entry turned out to be ten words - the ten words engraved on the shield Harry had dreamt about the previous night. He purposely did not record what the words meant (as he didn't know), or where they were from, just in case the diary fell into the wrong hands. It would not do for Death Eaters to get a hold of the journal and discover that Wormtail had the shield in his possession.

As before, he didn't even attempt to pronounce the words - hell, some of letters he didn't even recognize. They looked like some strange mix of French, Greek, Latin, and Draconic, mixed in with a little Martian on the side. Needless to say, Harry was completely stumped as to their meaning.

Hearing footsteps drawing near his door, Harry quickly shoved the diary back into the bedside table, tossed his glasses on said table, and attempted to feign sleep. Seconds later, James and Sirius bounced into the room, looking decidedly delighted about something, although, seeing as Harry's future was to be decided that day, perhaps their attitudes weren't entirely appropriate. Harry gave up on feigning sleep and told them as much, to which they shrugged in unison.

"Why shouldn't I be happy?" James demanded. "Today I prove to the world that my son is innocent, and not some insane, attention-seeking murderer!" Harry eyed him strangely.

"Since when was I a murderer?" he asked suspiciously.

"Did I say that?" James asked innocently, attempting to deflect the question, but he needn't have worried, because Harry's attention was already focused on something else. That something else happened to be Sirius, who was bouncing up and down in a rather demented fashion.

"Er… Padfoot, mate… you alright?" James inquired tentatively, to which Sirius merely bounced higher.

"Did he drink any coffee this morning?" Harry asked his father tiredly. He'd been up late last night; he wanted to sleep, and to hell with the trial. James frowned in thought, and then groaned.

"Missy loves making coffee. The only thing she likes more is styling hair. I left Sirius alone in the kitchen with her for almost half an hour while I got dressed. I think we can guess what happened."

"I… love… coffeeeeeeeeee!" Sirius exclaimed happily, bouncing higher than ever. James shook his head, grabbed Sirius by the arm, and started pulling him out of the room.

"Get dressed Harry, get Missy to cook you something, and we'll meet you in the Entrance Hall in 45 minutes. I need to sober up Padfoot. I think she snuck some rum into the coffee."

"Right!" Harry saluted his father, who attempted to return it, failed miserably as Sirius had started bouncing again, and tugged him down the hall with a resigned sigh. Harry turned back to his room. This was it. The big day. The day that would determine Harry's future. And Harry wanted nothing more than to go back to bed.


	14. The Trial

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Paragraphs 46-48 were taken directly from OOTP, copyright JKR/Warner Bros/whoever the hell owns HP now. Therefore and thusly, I make no attempt in claiming these spectacular examples of literary perfection as mine.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter 14 – The Trial

"So remind me again why we can't just use the Diagon Alley entrance?" Harry enquired in annoyance as his father ushered him into an old telephone box on a deserted Muggle street in downtown London. "I mean, no offense, but this just doesn't seem as… I dunno… glamorous."

"This is the visitor's entrance," Sirius explained for the umpteenth time. "The way we got in last time was for Ministry officials who can't or don't want to apparate."

"But I'm not a Ministry official! So why was I allowed through?"

James snorted. "Because you were accompanied by a man who'd supposedly been dead for fourteen years. The poor woman operating the entrance must've had a heart attack seeing me."

"Ever the modest one, our dear James," Sirius remarked airily, to which James faked punching him in the head. Harry mentally rolled his eyes. It was a good thing there was no one around, because they'd be eternally scarred by the sheer moronity of James and Sirius's bickering.

A cheerful voice snapped Harry out of his musings.

"Welcome, visitor, to the-"

"Yeah, yeah, we know. Sirius Black and James Potter, here to escort Harry Potter to his trial," Sirius interrupted the recorded voice.

"Thank you. Visitors are required to present their wand-"

"We _get it_," Sirius repeated with particular emphasis, while James typed in the code 62442 into the telephone dial. As the telephone (or rather, the lift) descended downwards, Sirius fished a badge out of the coin slot and stuck it on Harry's bottle green robes. Harry had questioned earlier if he should wear the robes, as they were decidedly Slytherin in appearance, but James had scoffed at the notion and reminded him that green "brought out his eyes", to which Harry had rolled his eyes.

With a shudder, the lift ground to a halt, and Harry found himself staring out at the entrance hall of the Ministry of Magic. The peacock blue ceiling stretched endlessly overhead, shining brightly from the golden symbols dancing across it. Sirius studied the roof for a moment, and nodded at James, who gave his son a pat on the shoulder, and swept off down a side corridor. Harry and Sirius headed towards a wizard sitting behind a large desk that was situated beside a large pair of golden doors (which Harry assumed led to the other areas of the ground floor level). The wizard sniffed, and grabbed Harry's wand before he could stop him.

The wizard placed the wand on a peculiar set of scales, waited a moment, and then handed it back. "You take this," he droned, "and I keep this." He tore off a strip of paper that shot out from the scales, and held it up for the pair to see.

"Holly, phoenix feather, 11 and a half inches? Been in use for four years?"

"That's right," Harry confirmed. The man slipped the parchment into a drawer, and looked about ready to fall asleep right then and there, before he noticed the name on the slip of parchment.

"Hang on…" the wizard said slowly. "Are you-"

"Say 'Harry Potter,' and I will hex you into oblivion, Eric," Sirius growled softly. "We're trying to keep a low profile here." Eric flinched, giving Sirius the opportunity to snatch the paper out of his hands, and discreetly aim his wand at the official's face. "I trust you won't be telling anyone about this little encounter?"

Eric blanched, both at the wand in Sirius's hand and the tone of his voice. "Absolutely! Not, I mean! So sorry to have disturbed you!" he squeaked nervously. Sirius gave him a distrustful look, but eventually handed Eric back the slip of paper after a sharp jab to his side from Harry.

"Er… sorry about that," Harry called at the man as Sirius dragged Harry past. "It's the Firewhiskey, you know, does strange things to a person's head."

Eric didn't seem very comforted by the explanation.

They headed towards a row of golden doors, which presumably held lifts of some sort, judging by the sign overhead which read "Lifts". Sirius and Harry stepped into the nearest one, and Sirius gave the other occupants his best "I-am-an-insane-mass-murderer-fear-me" look, which had them fleeing the lift in droves. Sirius punched a button, causing the lift to shudder and start its descent.

"I reckon you could've been nicer to that man, Sirius," Harry informed his godfather, who growled in response.

"Yelling loud enough for the whole Ministry to hear, trying to attract attention, endangering _my_ godson…" was Sirius's grumbled reply.

"Sirius! He wasn't endangering me! He was just doing his job…" Harry trailed off at the murderous expression on Sirius's face. "Never mind…"

"Morning, Arthur," James chirped happily as he swept into the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, where Arthur Weasley was seated at a desk, looking longingly at the side wall. "Still no window, then? Pity."

"Magical Maintenance claims our office still isn't important enough," Arthur sighed. "It was us who raided Malfoy's manner and found the hidden room under the Drawing room! Course, there wasn't anything incriminating under there – Malfoy probably knew we were coming and re-located his dark-arts things…" If James didn't know better, he'd have sworn Arthur was a bit put out by the whole affair.

"Hey, no worries!" James said cheerfully. "I'm an Auror – one of the best – remember? I'll just pull a few strings, call in a few favors, and you'll have a window in no time!" Arthur eyed him suspiciously.

"Who are you, and what have you done with James Potter? Why are you so happy this early in the morning, especially on the day of your son's trial? And speaking of Harry, shouldn't you be with him right now?"

James flopped into a chair beside the balding red-head. "The trial's not for an hour, so I thought I'd pop down here and surprise him with some doughnuts. You Misuse of Muggle Artifacts guys always have doughnuts."

Arthur sighed and shook his head.

"You're forgetting that this is fourteen years in the future, James. Fudge doesn't approve of doughnuts, on the grounds that they were originally designed by Muggles, so he banned them from the building."

"WHAT? But that's… that's…"

"Bad? Awful?"

"Pure evil," James declared righteously. "That man is pure evil. Oh _boy_ is he going to hear it from me."

Through the door swooped a pale violet paper airplane, executing fantastic twirls in the air until it lost its balance and crash landed on the desk. Chuckling, Arthur unfolded the memo and read it through quickly. Judging by the way his face went completely white, James figured the news wasn't good.

"Quick, man, what time is it?"

James stared at him. "Er… why?"

"Because according to my watch, Harry's hearing started five minutes ago. Fudge changed the time of the hearing, and he's moved it down to the old Courtroom 10!"

James jumped up from his chair. "What? That's insane! Why would he do that?"

Arthur was equally panicked. "I don't know! Oh, this is bad… if Harry makes them wait too long, they'll automatically pronounce him guil-"

James raised a warning finger.

"Don't say it," James snapped. Scrambling to his feet, he barreled out of the office and sprinted off down the hall towards the Auror's headquarters. Almost at the golden lift, James was taken by surprise when the doors opened, forcing him to collide rather painfully with Sirius, who was just stepping out. Harry watched the pair with poorly disguised amusement.

"What the hell?" Sirius demanded, dragging himself and James upright. "You were supposed to acquire some sort of sustenance, not bowl me over!"

Then he noted the panicked expression on his friend's face. "What's wrong?" James wordlessly shoved the memo at his friend, grabbed Harry, and jumped back into the lift, whose doors were closing.

_What on earth is going… _Sirius blinked. _Oh. Crap. _With that thought, Sirius chucked the letter aside, cursed furiously, magicked the doors of the second lift open, and jumped in, seriously frightening the few people inside. If James was planning dear Minister Fudge's murder, he'd better watch out, because he definitely had competition.

James and Harry burst out of the elevator, trying desperately to reach the courtroom as quickly as humanly possible, James cursing Fudge the whole time. They ran down the hall of the Department of Mysteries, but instead of going through a plain black door at the end of the corridor, James led them down a narrow staircase to the side, which apparently led to an even _lower_ level.

"This… is… ridiculous…" Harry gasped as they rounded the corner, slowing down so that James could figure out which door to go through. "Why didn't Fudge notify us of the change?"

"He did," James said as he eyed the numbers on the doors carefully. "But I imagine he sent said notification to us late on purpose, just so he could have the satisfaction of watching you miss your trial. Eight, nine… ten. This is it, Harry. Go on in, do your best, tell the truth… you know what to do."

Harry whirled to face his father. "I thought you and Sirius were coming in with me!"

James sighed, looking furiously over his shoulder.

"We are, as soon as Padfoot catches up. He's got all the evidence on him, you know. Not that we have a lot of it, to tell you the truth."

"He wouldn't have to catch up if we hadn't closed the lift doors on him," Harry reminded his father innocently. James scowled, checked his watch, and propelled Harry towards the courtroom door.

"Hurry! We'll see you in a minute, so try not to get yourself expelled and imprisoned before that, alright? Good luck."

"Imprisoned?" But James was already gone back up the corridor.

Sighing, Harry opened the door and stepped inside the courtroom. His immediate reaction was to gasp in shocked recognition - he could not help himself. The large dungeon he had entered was horribly familiar. He had not only seen it before, he had _been_ here before. This was the place he had visited inside Dumbledore's pensieve, the place where he had witnessed the Lestranges sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban.

The walls were made of dark stone, dimly lit by torches. Empty benches rose on either side of him, but ahead, in the highest benches of all, were many shadowy figures. They had been talking in low voices, but as the heavy door swung closed behind Harry an ominous silence fell.

A cold male voice rang across the courtroom. "You're late."

Harry jumped, startled. He knew that voice – Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic. How long ago had Fudge regarded him with a fatherly smile and a pat on the back? How quickly opinions could change in the space of one year.

Harry cleared his throat, put on his "Golden Boy" face and attitude his guardians taught him, and replied smoothly, "I only received the memo of the time change five minutes ago."

"That is not the fault of the Wizengamot." Fudge barked, and now that Harry's eyes had adjusted to the dim light, he could make out the rest of the members of the "Wizengamot". He didn't recognize a single face, except for Percy Weasley's, who Harry worked mightily not to glare at.

"Of course it isn't," Harry replied, "I just thought you should be informed of the inadequacy of your Ministry memos."

_Oh, nicely done, _he berated himself furiously _Way to insult the Ministry before the trial's even started! _

"That is none of your concern," Fudge snapped. "Now please take your seat, Mister Potter." Harry turned to the chair in the center of the room, its arms covered in lengths of chain. He could remember how the chains had wrapped themselves around the Lestranges and Barty Crouch's arms when they'd had their hearings. Harry gulped, but took his seat nonetheless, barely suppressing a sigh of relief when the chains did not bind his arms to the chair. He turned his attention back to Fudge, who was clearly impatient to begin the hearing.

"Well, now that the accused is _finally_ here, we can begin. Disciplinary hearing on the second of August, into offences committed under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Statue of Secrecy by Harry James Potter, resident at number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey-"

"Actually," Harry interrupted, unable to contain himself, "I live at my dad's house now, you know, at the Potter manor. I left Privet Drive about three weeks ago."

Fudge glowered at him, but gestured to Percy to correct the mistake. Percy was holding a roll of parchment and a quill, so Harry guessed he was taking notes on the trial or something to that effect. Beside Fudge sat a stern looking woman wearing a monocle, and on the other side, a rather short, overweight witch who reminded Harry strongly of a toad.

"If you are done correcting me, Potter? Thank you. Interrogators: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister for Magic; Amelia Susan Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. Court Scribe, Percy Ignatius Weasley-"

"Witness for the defense, James Joseph Harold Andrew Potter-" James announced dramatically, striding boldly into the room as if he were used to having all eyes on him. Which, Harry supposed, he was.

"- and Sirius Orion Black," Sirius added, trudging along behind his friend with a homicidal glint in his eyes. "Next time you decide to change the time of a hearing simply to discredit Harry, Fudge, at least try to do it in a semi-intelligent way."

Fudge scrunched up his face as if he'd just swallowed something particularly sour. "You are out of line, Black. I am the Minister for Magic, and your comments are entirely-"

"Truthful?" Sirius inquired cheekily, conjuring up two puffy armchairs beside Harry's chair, which looked to be infinitely more comfortable than the stone benches the Wizengamot members sat upon. Indeed, several of the witches and wizards eyed Sirius and James with envy.

"Incidentally," James added, "the Potters have always held a seat in the Wizengamot. Why _exactly_ was I not invited to attend this trial?" A few people shifted uncomfortably, and Fudge seemed at a loss. The stern looking witch frowned at Fudge.

"I thought you said James Potter was too busy to attend, Cornelius?"

Fudge flushed. "Well… I must have been misinformed, I suppose. Terribly sorry, Amelia…" The witch didn't seem too pleased with this breach of protocol, but proceeded nonetheless.

"The charges, if you please, Cornelius?"

Fudge extracted a scroll from his pocket, unrolled it, cleared his throat, and began reading in an annoyingly pompous voice. "That he did knowingly, deliberately, and in full awareness of the illegality of his actions, having received a previous written warning from the Ministry of Magic on a similar charge, produce a Patronus Charm in a Muggle-inhabited area, on the thirty-first of July, which constitutes an offence under Paragraph C of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, and also under Section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks Statue of Secrecy- "

"Hold on a minute," James interrupted hotly, "but on what grounds are you claiming my son violated the Statue of Secrecy? There were no Muggles in the area, so there is technically no breach!"

Fudge smirked, causing James and Sirius's blood to boil. "Ordinarily, no, there wouldn't be a breach, but Mr. Potter's… Patronus – if you can even call such a pitiful attempt a Patronus – lit up the surrounding sky briefly, as all Patroni generally do. Any Muggle would have noticed a silver glow if they'd been in the area, and there is no proof that there were no Muggles in the area."

"That's ridiculous!" Sirius protested. "If there's no proof over the existence of Muggles in the area, then you can't charge him for that! You have no solid proof!"

Fudge grinned triumphantly. He really seemed to be enjoying winning an argument against James and Sirius in public – God alone knows why. "Madam Bones?"

Amelia Bones cleared her throat. "Ah, yes, well, gentlemen, Mr. Fudge vouches for the close proximity of Muggles at the time of Mr. Potter's alleged crime. The Minister's word is law, to a certain extent, so the charge of the violation of the Statue holds," she stated firmly, fixing James and Sirius with a stern stare. They sighed simultaneously, gave Harry an apologetic glance, and resumed their seats.

"You are Harry James Potter, of number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey?" Fudge said, glaring at Harry over the top of his parchment. Harry returned the glare happily.

"Didn't we already cover this? I am Harry James Potter of… well, I don't actually know the number, but of Potter Manor, wherever the hell that is."

"Language, Mr. Potter," Madam Bones snapped, causing Sirius to wince.

"Bloody Hell, woman, you sound like my mother. Or at least, what I think she would have sounded like if she weren't a prejudiced monster."

The look Amelia Bones leveled at the Animagus was enough to send the man into an abrupt and slightly fearful silence. There were few things that could silence Sirius, and it seemed one of these things was Amelia Bones.

Fudge sniffed, but signaled Percy to amend the official record. "Fine. You received an official warning from the Ministry for using illegal magic three years ago, did you not?"

"Yes, but-"

"And yet you conjured a Patronus on the night of the thirty-first of July?"

"Yes, but-"

"Knowing that you are not permitted to use magic outside school while you are under the age of seventeen?"

"Yes, but-"

"Knowing that you were in an area full of Muggles?"

"Yes, but I only used it because-"

The witch with the monocle cut across him in a booming voice. "You produced a fully-fledged Patronus?"

"Yes, because-"

"A corporeal Patronus?"

"_Yes_. It's a stag, it's always a stag."

"Always?" boomed Madam Bones, "You have produced a Patronus before now?"

"_Yes_," Harry repeated, getting slightly annoyed. "I've casting it for over a year now, possibly two."

"And you are fifteen years old? You learned this at school?"

"Yes, Professor Lupin taught me-"

"Impressive," Madam Bones said approvingly. "A corporeal Patronus at his age… very impressive." Some of the witches and wizards around her were muttering again; a few nodded, but others were frowning and shaking their heads. James and Sirius looked very pleased, and were regarding Amelia Bones with much more respect than before.

"It's not a matter of how impressive the magic was," Fudge cut in, "it's the fact that he broke the Reasonable Restriction-"

Harry could stand this no longer. He hadn't survived the Dursleys for fourteen years, seen his dead father come back to life, or seen his innocent godfather freed, just to sit here as these idiots cut him off every time he tried to explain himself.

"I did it because of the Dementors!" he exclaimed, drawing the muttering courtroom's attention back to him.

"What do you mean, boy?" Madam Bones snapped.

"I mean there were two Dementors in that park that attacked me, and would have succeeded if I hadn't driven them off!"

Fudge chuckled, and then smirked unpleasantly. "Dementors, eh, boy? Thought that one up, did you, Harry? Maybe even got your father and godfather in on the deal, eh? Dementors in downtown London. Pah!"

"I'm not lying!" Harry said loudly, and at the same time James and Sirius leapt to their feet. Sirius seemed about to attack the Minister, but James nudged him, and Sirius sat down reluctantly, still fingering his wand.

"You forget yourself, Minister Fudge," James stated in a cold voice. "You can accuse my son of something he was perfectly allowed to do under our laws. However, you will not accuse myself or Sirius Black of making tales with no proof whatsoever. You are blindly pointing the accusing finger, Cornelius, with no evidence to back up your claims. You are also accusing two of your top Aurors-"

"-one of which whom you illegally placed in Azkaban for twelve years _without a trial_-" Sirius hissed.

"-with no proof. The public doesn't like it when their heroes are falsely accused. Ministers have been kicked out of office for that-"

"-and sometimes worse," Sirius concluded. Fudge gave him a confused frown, so Sirius mimed hanging himself at the neck. Fudge gulped nervously, and Harry had to bite back a laugh.

"Fine," Madam Bones snapped. "Minister Fudge redraws his accusation of James Potter and Sirius Black. Shall we continue?"

"Of course, Amelia dear," Sirius replied with a charming grin, causing Madam Bones to glower at him.

"When I taught you Potions for that short time in your fourth year, Black, I warned you not to call me that, on pain of death. That threat still holds to this day."

Sirius winced. "My mistake, Professor."

"Continuing along, then. Mr. Potter, unless you have proof of the existence of Dementors in Talon Park, this trial will conclude, and I must say that with no witnesses and no evidence, things aren't looking too good for you."

Harry was now extremely worried. He had no proof that the Dementors had been in the park! With no evidence, he would lose the trial for sure. Harry couldn't even imagine what it would be like, sitting at home while his friends went off to Hogwarts…

A quick, nervous glance over to Sirius and James revealed the two men leaning towards each other and whispering quietly. They appeared quite frustrated, unfortunately, which Harry took to be a bad sign.

_Well, this is it, _Harry thought miserably. _Azkaban, here I come._

"Well?" Fudge demanded triumphantly. "You don't have any witnesses, it seems. If that's the case, then we can continue-"

"I'm afraid that won't be necessary," a firm voice interrupted calmly, and Harry swiveled around to see Albus Dumbledore – his salvation, hopefully – entering the courtroom. The old man's blue eyes twinkled, and he gave a slight nod to Harry, although failing to meet his eyes. Harry was too nervous at the moment to care, however, so he disregarded the lack of eye contact.

"Dumbledore," Fudge stated flatly. "Got our letter about the time change, did you?"

"I must have missed it," he replied cheerfully. "Luckily I was at the Ministry three hours early, or else I sadly would have missed Mr. Potter's trial. And we all know what a disaster _that _would have been."

The members of the Wizengamot muttered amongst themselves. Madam Bones cleared her throat. "Exactly _why_, precisely, would that be a disaster, Albus?"

He smiled serenely at the stern woman, and flourished a stack of papers he was carrying in one hand, attracting the attention of the Wizengamot. With his other hand, behind his back, he made a strange gesture in James and Sirius's direction that Harry didn't understand. The two nodded, and James ever so inconspicuously reached into his robes, withdrawing something rather small that Harry couldn't make out. Harry grimaced. This couldn't be a good sign.

"What are those papers, Albus?" Madam Bones inquired impatiently, while at the same time Fudge snapped, "Can we _please_ get on with this?"

Dumbledore flourished the papers once more, cleared his throat, and began to speak.

"From what I understand, Mr. Potter is being tried for using illegal underage magic in a Muggle-inhabited area." Madam Bones nodded for him to continue. "And he claims that he used the spell to fend off two Dementors."

"Where exactly are you going with this summary, Dumbledore?" Fudge demanded in annoyance. Dumbledore merely gave him another serene smile, and continued.

"It seems to me that the easiest way to determine Mr. Potter's innocence would be for him to replay the events – and I happen to have a pensieve on hand that would do rather nicely."

Harry's heart leapt – he could relive the event, and prove his innocence! Fudge didn't seem so sure, however. "But the boy could simply make up an event, and put that into the pensieve. Even a made up event can be placed in a pensieve, you know. It would be a simple matter for Potter to deceive us all with a carefully crafted memory that _never happened_!"

A slight twitch of Dumbledore's finger brought James and Sirius to their feet.

"That is why, with Harry's agreement, of course, we can deliver a mild mind-control potion to him that will prevent that sort of thing from happening. Making up an event, I mean," Sirius explained, as James presented the small object he'd retrieved from his pocket to Madam Bones. It was apparently a flask holding Sirius's "mind-control" potion.

She looked surprised at the offer, but since there was no rule specifically prohibiting this, she could see no reason not to continue. Fudge opened his mouth in outrage, but was silenced by a stern look from Madam Bones, as well as a few carefully chosen words. "You may be the Minister, Cornelius, but I am in charge of this hearing." He grudgingly accepted her words, and slumped back down into his chair, muttering angrily under his breath. Harry noticed the toad-like woman beside Fudge lean forward slightly, and whisper something to him, which calmed Fudge down immeasurably.

"Right," James whispered, kneeling down beside Harry with the bottle of mind-control serum, while Sirius and Dumbledore took it in turns explaining the strength and effects of the potion to the Wizengamot, some of whom had little knowledge when it came to Potions. "You heard what Sirius said. This is a mild mind-control potion – it won't hurt one bit, believe me – so all you need to do to prove your innocence is drink it down. And make sure not to fight it! If you do, I'll know, and therefore so will the rest of the Wizengamot. Don't be afraid."

Harry glared at him indignantly. "I'm not afraid! I just want to get this stupid trial over with!"

"Shhh! Keep your voice down! Look, just drink this and we're done. Oh, and try to show only the events pertaining to this trial – if the Ministry finds out about the Order, we're all in serious trouble."

"Sirius trouble?" Harry joked weakly, and James couldn't help but grin.

"That's the spirit, kid. Now, drink up." James tilted the liquid into Harry's mouth, and Harry felt the smooth concoction slide down his throat. Suddenly, the room began to grow fuzzy, and Harry once again felt the contentment that only comes from being mind-controlled.

.:Put your wand to your temple:. a voice – his father's voice – instructed. .:Do it:.

Harry fought down the urge to resist the potion, and instead gave himself over to the potion, doing as he was told.

.:Remember the night of July 31. Remember the Dementor attack:. the voice instructed, .:Send these thoughts into your wand. Visualize these thoughts leaving your head. Now put these thoughts in the basin:.

_So this is how you work a Pensieve,_ Harry thought in interest as he stiffly followed the instructions, placing the silvery strand into the Pensieve. His father removed the Pensieve as Sirius administered the antidote. The world came back into focus abruptly.

As he sat in the chain-covered chair, Harry watched as the Wizengamot viewed his thoughts. By the end of the scene, all mouths were open in shock, and by Sirius's broad grin, it was clear that Harry had won his case. Now it was a simple matter of ending the trial and sending everyone home.

Madam Bones stood up shakily. The thought of Dementors either outside Ministry control, or attacking citizens _under_ Ministry control was obviously quite unnerving, and the majority of the Wizengamot agreed. "Well, after that convincing piece of evidence, it has come to a final vote. All those who believe Potter is guilty?"

Four or five people raised their hands, among them Fudge and the toad-like witch, who Harry decided that he definitely did not like. Hang on… five hands raised… that meant Harry had won the trial!

"And those who believe Potter is innocent of all charges?" The remainder of the Wizengamot raised their hands, including James, who was staring Madam Bones challengingly.

"Alright," she said, "5 votes for conviction, 54 ag-… oh, _very_ well, Mr. Potter, you've made your point. Fifty-_five_ votes against. Mr. Potter… Harry, I mean, is officially cleared of all charges."

The Wizengamot immediately swarmed towards the exit, chattering happily and paying little attention to Harry. Indeed, their attention was focused more on James and Sirius.

"Good defense, Potter, Black, quite good, I say. How are things these days, eh? Rejoined the Auror forces yet?"

"Appalling, isn't it? Forgetting to invite you to the trial, you being a part of the Wizengamot and everything!"

"Simply appalling!"

"Someone ought to do something about it."

"Yes, but with that bumbling idiot Fudge in charge…"

Harry waited impatiently as James and Sirius politely answered the flood of comments directed their way, cool and collected as always. Okay, James's were narrowing at an alarming rate, and Sirius was developing an agitated tick in his forehead, but at least they weren't attacking the crowd. Not yet, anyway.

The only people not chatting up James and Sirius were Fudge and the toad-lady, who simply swept past, noses high in the air. Harry's dislike for the duo increased. Who did they think they were? He turned his attention back to James, who was being questioned on his Auror status.

"-and with the rumors of Voldemort's return going around, although they're supposed to be just that, rumors, well, shouldn't all the Aurors be called in? I mean, you and Mr. Black are registered Aurors – shouldn't you be going back to work? I mean, call of duty and all that…"

"Well," James explained, "the fact is that Minister Fudge is trying to quench the rumors of Voldemort's return, and I'm not too sure I like that."

"Are you saying Fudge is lying? Has Voldemort returned? Would you quit if Fudge continues denying His return?"

James stared at the questioner in annoyance. "Look, m'am, I'm not really at liberty to say. But if you're really that eager for gossip, then yes, I probably will quit the Auror force, Voldemort or no." A chorus of shocked _what?_s sprang up from the Wizengamot members. Sirius grinned, causing James to groan.

"He's been gone for fourteen years, my friends. Is it such a crime to take a little time off to spend some time with his one and only son?" Sirius demanded, knowing it would get a reaction from the crowd, which it did, of course. A group of women began gushing about how wonderful a father James was, two men gruffly patted James on the back and stated they understood completely, etc.

James tapped Sirius on the shoulder, and whispered, "Code Stag". It was a secret code from their school days – Code Stag had meant James wanted to get away, usually to spend time with Lily Evans, although it didn't have to be that specific. Nodding shortly, Sirius began speaking in loud, carrying tones, attracting everyone's attention to him. As Sirius entertained the crowd with a detailed account of James's rebirth, James grabbed Harry and the pair snuck out of the courtroom.

Once they'd successfully escaped the room, James pulled Harry into a hug. "Congratulations, son. Cleared of all charges. Well done."

Harry grinned. "Well, it wouldn't have turned out that way, had you not been there."

"Yes, well, be that as it may…" James protested modestly, causing both to laugh, seeing as James was anything but modest. As they walked back up the staircase leading to the Department of Mysteries level, the two discussed what to do with the rest of their summer. Just as Harry was voicing the idea of practicing more often the Animagus transformation (in low tones, of course), they rounded the corner and came face to face with Lucius Malfoy, who was speaking quietly with Minister Fudge.

They eyed Malfoy and Fudge suspiciously, but before Harry could say anything, James grabbed his son and dragged him sideways into the golden lift. As James pushed the button to the Atrium, Harry demanded, "Why was Malfoy in the Department of Mysteries? He had no business being there – he isn't on the Wizengamot, is he?"

"No, and he doesn't work in the Department of Mysteries either," James agreed, frowning.

"Maybe he was trying to sneak a glimpse of my trial?" Harry offered, to which James nodded his head absently.

"Possibly… but there could be another reason. I can't believe Dumbledore was right…" James muttered. This grabbed Harry's attention.

"What was Dumbledore right about?" Harry demanded. This snapped James out of his musings.

"What? Oh, nothing… nothing…"

Harry tried to get more information out of his father, but James completely clammed up, and after a few minutes of one-sided conversation, Harry gave up, spending the rest of the trip home in silence. He really wished his father would trust him enough to tell him what was going on.

_Then again_, he thought as he sank down into a comfy chair in the Potter Manor sitting room, _in all likelihood I'll figure out what's going on before the year is over. I always find out what's going on in the end, after all._

With that comfortable thought, Harry's eyes closed slowly as weariness overtook him.


	15. Summer's End

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Fifteen – Summer's End

Following his trial, the rest of the summer passed in a blur for Harry, but what a wonderful summer it was! From Animagus training to frequent visits to Grimmauld Place, Harry found himself truly enjoying his vacation, thanks in a large part to Sirius and James, who were an endless source of amusement. By August 31, Harry was having trouble remembering a time when his guardians weren't always by his side, laughing, offering advice, and cracking jokes.

Indeed, with the thought of leaving for Hogwarts the next day in his head, Harry actually found himself dreading the start of school – something he'd never done before. Although when he'd voiced his regrets on leaving his guardians to go to school earlier that day, most curiously they hadn't seemed very sad about the idea. Harry had immediately interrogated them on what they were up to, but before he could get an answer, they'd dragged him out to play a last game of Quidditch before school started.

Deciding he would just have to wait and find out their secrets at a later date, Harry turned his attention to other matters. With the aid of two very experienced Animagi, Harry had made remarkable progress on his transformation, and, according to James, should be done by Christmas. The three manor-dwellers had also successfully mastered flying standing up on a broom, and had also perfected a variety of other moves Harry couldn't wait to show Ron. Speaking of Ron…

Harry had almost forgotten, but this was the year in which the male and female Prefects were chosen for each house, and he had been shocked when Ron was chosen instead of himself. He supposed Ron must be a better candidate for some reason – perhaps it was his tactical mind – but whatever the reason, Harry couldn't help but feel a tad jealous. James, picking up on these feelings, (Sirius was off God knows where) had immediately set about cheering his son up, reminding Harry that he himself hadn't been made Prefect. As Sirius later explained, "Lupin was the good boy, he got the badge".

Harry was perhaps most proud of his accomplishments regarding sword training with Decimare. He could now successfully attack and block, and was currently learning some more complicated attacking maneuvers. Harry knew he was nowhere near done his training, but Decimare was quite pleased, and claimed Harry was well on his way to becoming a blade-master. He didn't believe the evil spirit, of course, but he was nonetheless extremely proud of his accomplishment.

"What are you thinking about, son?" James inquired as he staggered into the room, out of breath for some reason.

"Not much, really…"

"Never mind about that now, Harry," James cut him off, scrambling over to his son with a nervous look on his face. "You haven't seen Sirius, have you? Holding a vial of pink potion?"

Harry stared at his father. "Um, no…"

James breathed a sigh of relief.

"Good. That complete _prat_ brewed a dye potion – a pink one, mind! – and has decided my hair would look nice in a lovely shade of fuchsia! My beautiful hair, pink!" James moaned, gazing towards the bay window with a longing expression on his smooth face. Both jumped when Sirius burst into the room, pink dye in hand.

"Ready for total pink-ination, Prongs?" Sirius crowed as he advanced on the cornered James. Harry, used to this interaction by now, shot a quick look at his father, who discreetly pointed at the chair Harry was seated on. As Sirius bore down on James, Harry plunged a hand under the chair, and emerged with a vial of clear liquid that his father must have planted there earlier.

One of the things that had made the past month enjoyable were the continuous pranks Prongs and Padfoot pulled on each other, and also on Harry, much to his dismay. Harry had soon learned to look around corners before turning them, check his food before eating, and never, _ever_ turn his back on an opponent. Unbeknownst to Harry, Sirius had actually masterminded the whole thing to teach Harry some basic skills he would need later in life. No matter how carefree he acted, Sirius was quite capable of being clever – and sometimes deadly – when the need arose. The only person who knew this side of Sirius was James (and possibly Remus), but they were so used to it they never bothered to share the knowledge.

Sneaking up stealthily behind Sirius, just like he'd been taught, Harry emptied the vial over his godfather's head. Sirius gasped, whirling around, allowing James the opportunity to snatch the pink dye from his hand.

"What the…" Sirius gasped, wiping the liquid out of his eyes. "What is this stuff?" Both he and Harry turned expectantly to James, who grinned.

"A neutral substance, colorless and odorless, whose molecules are comprised of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom."

Sirius gaped at him in disbelief.

"What! You saved your sorry hide using a vial of…"

"Sometimes the simplest solutions can be the best," James replied modestly, casting a drying charm on the bedraggled man. "Always remember that, son." Harry filed the message away for future use, but was still very concerned about Sirius, as he had no idea of what he'd actually poured on the man.

"Well, what was it? What did I pour on Sirius?" Harry demanded. Suddenly a horrified look covered his face. "It isn't poison, is it?"

James laughed, ruffling his son's hair, ignoring Harry's half-hearted protests. "H20," he clarified. "You poured water on dear Padfoot. You really need to brush up on your chemistry, kid," he observed. Harry gaped at him.

"That was your scapegoat? _Water_?" James at least had the decency to look apologetic. Harry, unable to stop himself, shouted slightly hysterically, "Do you know what you've done to my image? Throwing a vial of _water_ at someone? My entire career as a prankster is over! Down the drain!"

"Which is fitting," Sirius observed, "as your career was ruined by water. Haha! Get it? Water, drain… water goes down the drain, your career goes… never mind," Sirius trailed off. James sighed and mouthed "why me?"

With the fun apparently over, the thought of returning to Hogwarts the next day caused Harry to sigh and sink down onto a chair. Sirius and James hovered above him, still exchanging irritated looks with each other.

"I'm gonna miss you two," Harry muttered, sighing heavily. Once again, James and Sirius showed no signs of sadness or regret.

"I don't think that will be the case," Sirius remarked with a grin. "Night, Harry."

The two swept off, leaving Harry on the sofa yelling after them, "Wait a minute! What did you mean by that?"

Harry sighed and sank deeper into the chair, severely annoyed with the pair of them. Why couldn't they ever give him a straight answer? He supposed this kind of thing improved his abilities of understanding and comprehension, but would it kill them to be direct, even once? _Apparently_, he decided bitterly, pushing himself off the chair and heading to his rooms.

Upon entering his large and luxurious suite, Harry realized he'd overlooked something very important – namely, what to do with Decimare now that school would soon be in session. He'd stolen the sword from the Potter vault, after all, so he couldn't just go parading around with it. And, like most teenagers, he didn't exactly want to turn himself in for taking the sword. _Besides_, he told himself as he pulled the black sword from under his bed, _Decimare can only properly be used by a parselmouth_ – and damned if he would surrender the sword to Voldemort – _so technically the sword is rightfully mine_.

The shiny black metal snake coiled around the hilt woke sleepily. Seeing Harry's uncertainty, it hissed .:You are wondering what to do with me now that you are going back to school:.

Slightly startled, Harry replied, "Yes…"

.:Well, I certainly don't see the problem. I have the ability to change my form, shifting from a sword to a ring. You can wear me while at school, change me back to normal when needed, and everything will be fine:. it explained, as if Harry should have known all this.

Oh. That made a lot of sense, Harry realized. "I would have thought of that had you told me that you could change form!" he snapped defensively, but the snake merely snickered in amusement. "Fine then!" Harry exclaimed. "Transform, already, so I can go to bed!"

.:I think not, Master. You still have training to do:.

"But it's eleven at night! I'm going to Hogwarts tomorrow; I need my beauty sleep!"

The snake eyed him, clearly annoyed, but eventually sighed in defeat.

.:Fine:. Decimare snapped, and, with a slight pop, the large black sword transformed into a small, shiny black ring in the shape of a serpent biting its own tail. Harry reached down, picked up the ring, and placed it on his hand.

.:Ah, much better:. a voice said, echoing in Harry's mind rather than out loud. Oh dear. It seemed he'd gone mad.

.:Of course you haven't gone insane, master:. the voice snapped, hissing furiously. The voice sounded oddly familiar to Harry… very familiar, in fact…

"Decimare?" he gasped, and the voice in his head, the sword spirit, hissed sarcastically.

.:No, fool, I'm actually a pink bunny come to eat you. Who else would I be? And you can think your responses, not say them aloud, or people will think you actually _have_ gone mad. I can hear you perfectly fine this way:.

"Cool! Telepathy! Why didn't you tell about this whole shape-shifting, telepathy thing before?" Harry demanded silently.

.:You never asked:.

The next morning…

"EEEEEEEEEEEEK!"

Missy's screech literally shook the manor, effectively waking all it's occupants.

"…the hell?" Sirius exclaimed, bolting upright in his bed, hands pressed firmly over ears. Waking to an ear-splitting shriek was not his idea of a fun time.

A few rooms down found James groggily shoving his glasses in place and peeking sleepily at his mahogany and gold alarm clock. It read 10:30 AM. Well. That was a decent time to wake up, James decided, but something still nagged at the back of his mind. Something very important.

Harry's panicked shout defined the feeling.

"Oh my god! We need to be at King's Cross station in thirty minutes!"

_Shit_.

Twenty minutes later, the three men darted into the entrance hall from different directions, Harry frantically cleaning his glasses, and Sirius desperately combing out his sopping wet hair. They met in the middle of the room, barely avoiding a nasty collision.

"Okay," James panted, "T minus 10 minutes and counting. Is everyone washed? Dressed? Harry, you've got your trunk?"

"Yep," Harry confirmed. "Or rather, Missy's got it, and is probably at King's Cross being loaded as we speak."

"T minus 8 minutes and counting," Sirius interjected hastily. "Everyone into the fireplace!" The three crowded into the fireplace, James grabbed some Floo powder, and they disappeared in a roar of emerald flames.

"T minus 2 minutes and counting," Sirius exclaimed, slightly hysterical.

"Sirius! Calm down! We're at the station and the baggage is loaded. I have plenty of time!" Harry told his godfather in an attempt to quiet him.

"Harry's right, Padfoot," James decreed. "Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. There you go."

"I'm going to miss you, dad, Sirius." Harry said softly, not caring he was spoiling his carefully crafted "golden-boy" look… or was he actually enhancing it? _Stop second-guessing yourself, _Harry told himself firmly. "Can't you just… I dunno… come to Hogwarts with me?"

"Don't worry Harry!" James exclaimed. "You'll have so much fun with Ron and Hermione, you won't even notice our absence!"

"But I've only had two months with you guys! I wish you could come to Hogwarts with me." As James hugged his son and pushed him towards the train, Sirius winked at his best friend and godson, whispering, "Wish granted."


	16. The Return of Padfoot and Prongs

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Sixteen – The Return of Padfoot and Prongs

As soon as the Hogwarts Express had left the station, carrying the Potter heir with it, James turned to his best friend. The two collapsed in helpless fits of laughter.

"I can't wait to see his face when we show up at Hogwarts!" Sirius exclaimed.

"Speaking of which," James replied, laughter fading away, "you do realize that we haven't gotten the go-ahead for this insane little plot yet?"

"Oh," Sirius realized, face falling. "Well, I guess we'll just have to get permission, won't we? We can Apparate over to the Ministry, yell at Fudge, and then head to Hogwarts in time for the Sorting feast."

"Sounds like a plan," James grinned.

"We're here to see Cornelius. I mean, Minister Fudge," Sirius informed Fudge's personal secretary, Ms. Cline, causing her to blush. Sirius winked at her, flashing the flustered woman his most roguish grin, and she blushed all the more.

"Anytime?" James said dryly, prompting Sirius to give him an irritated glare.

"Hmm?" Cline stuttered. "Oh! Oh, right! Uh, let me just see if he's busy… Mr. Fudge? There are two gentlemen here to see you… oh! I won't disturb you then!" She flushed, setting her manicured hand down from where she'd been pushing the intercom button.

"So, what's the deal?" Sirius demanded.

She blushed even brighter. If James didn't know better, he'd say she was turning into a tomato. She was certainly plump enough for it. "Minister Fudge is… er… taking a nap. Stressful job, you understand. He'll see you tomorrow, if that's alright…"

"Over my dead body," James informed the woman curtly, pushing past her with Sirius on his heels. The two black-robed men swept up to the golden doors separating Fudge's office from the rest of the Ministry, exchanged a glance, and then burst into the office without bothering to knock. Fudge, who was reading a Playwizard magazine, gave a startled yelp that sounded something like "Death Eaters!" before he realized it was James and Sirius.

"Gentlemen!" he squeaked in annoyance, "I'm taking a nap! Surely Ms. Cline informed you! Good day!" Fudge swirled around dramatically in his swivel chair, putting his back to face them.

"You'll want to check out page 19," Sirius advised Fudge with a lewd grin, gesturing to the pornographic Playwizard magazine clutched in the Minister's pudgy fingers. "Adela Stanley is particularly hot in that photo."

Fudge gaped at him, flushing even redder than his secretary, and hastily stowed the magazine out of sight. "Fine," he snapped irritably. "What do you want?"

"An Auror assignment," James informed him without preamble. When dealing with a bumbling idiot like Fudge, it was best to be direct. "Aurors Sirius Black and myself request to be stationed at Hogwarts Academy for the duration of the school year."

Fudge gaped at him. "Doing what?"

"Security detail," James explained. He was almost hoping Fudge would deny them – he and Sirius had worked out a terrific good cop/bad cop routine, and Sirius was one of the best "bad cops" there was, second only to Alastor Moody.

Fudge, predictably, immediately began spluttering. "That's ridiculous! Hogwarts has all the defensive measures it needs! Besides, you're needed here!"

"Hogwarts can always use more security," James reasoned. He mustn't lose his temper; that was Sirius's job. "And we certainly aren't needed here. What would we do, patrol Diagon Alley?"

"No need, since you declared yesterday Voldemort is officially dead, and was never living in the first place," Sirius added nastily. "AND ANOTHER THING-"

"_Not yet_," James murmured. "_Wait until he's really nervous. Then you can scare him into doing anything we want._"

Fudge bristled. "Look, you two. Ever since you – James – 'came back from the dead', you two have been a thorn in my side. Declaring You-Know-Who alive – preposterous! – then trying to depose me as Minister, and finally your fool son breaking laws left and right! I never should have welcomed you two back as Aurors!"

"Yet you did," James reminded him with a smug grin. Fudge looked absolutely outraged with himself, but eventually his puny mind ground back into gear.

"Yes, I did! And since you are an employee of the Ministry of Magic, I am using my authority as Minister to ensure that you will spend the rest of your careers washing pots in the kitchens! You will never go to Hogwarts, you will never undermine my authority again, and you will rue the day you thought to depose me as Minister for Magic!" Fudge shouted hysterically. James inwardly cheered – things were going exactly as planned.

"I'm afraid that doesn't sit too well with me," James informed the Minister calmly. "I have obligations to my family. I therefore suggest you take back your words, or there will be consequences."

Fudge growled, hackles raised. "Oh really? What kind of consequences would I, the Minister of Magic, possibly have to worry about?"

Sirius grinned his patent 'I'm-an-insane-mass-murderer-fear-me' smile. "Crossing the only surviving members of the Potter and Black houses will earn you more than a bruised ego, Fudge. James, I believe you own a good chunk of the Daily Prophet?"

"Is that suppose to scare me?" Fudge sneered.

"Yes," Sirius snapped, "because that means that with a little encouragement, James here can have any story he wants printed. And as we all know, Fudge, you have many skeletons in your closet that the wizarding world would just _love_ to learn about."

"The end of your career, possibly a jail sentence…" James added.

"And if all else fails," Sirius continued, "I can always file a lawsuit against you for the twelve years of hell you illegally put me through." Fudge went white; he'd obviously forgotten about that. James decided Fudge needed one more push.

"And if even that fails, well… it's a well known fact that politicians are often… how can I put this delicately?... removed, if their ideas aren't publicly appreciated."

"A knife in the back, Fudge, and your life is over," Sirius concluded.

"Are you threatening me?" Fudge demanded angrily. "You wouldn't dare have the Minister for Magic assassinated!"

"Watch me," Sirius growled, advancing on Fudge with a psychotic glint in his eye. Fudge gulped and backed away nervously.

"Of course," James interjected, voice a blank mask of innocence, "you could just assign Sirius and I to somewhere far away – say, Hogwarts. Then we'd be too far to influence or murder you, and you could sleep safely knowing Sirius is a hundred miles away."

Fudge grasped onto James's words like a lifeline, clearly frightened out of his mind. _Good lord, but this man is easy to manipulate, _James thought.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'll do!" He shuffled some paperwork, eyed Sirius nervously, and then scribbled down: 'Aurors Black and Potter are re-assigned to Hogwarts Academy for Security Detail. Length of assignment, 10 months. Signed, Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister for Magic.'

"Thank you, Minister," James chirped, snatching up the pass. With a slight bow, he and Sirius made their way quickly out of the office, leaving behind a confused and extremely frightened Minister.

Once outside the huge double doors, the two began laughing hysterically. "Did you see his face?" Sirius choked. "He looked like a-" He was cut off by a smack upside the head from James. "What?" he demanded in annoyance. James nodded meaningfully towards Ms. Cline, who was watching them, obviously scandalized by their unprofessional behavior.

"Umm…" Sirius stammered, at a loss for words. He mentally hit himself – he must be slipping if he couldn't even talk his way out of a situation like this. Luckily, James saved them with his usual flair.

"So sorry to disturb you, Madam Cline," James drawled, giving Sirius time to recover. "My friend and I were simply amused that other women even try to match your undeniable beauty." As soon as the words were out of his mouth he had to suppress a grimace. _That was even worse than Harry's attempts at pick up lines._

Thankfully, Cline wasn't very bright. "Oh, I don't know about that…"

"You're the only woman for me," Sirius told her firmly, dragging James out of the room. "Buh bye now!"

Outside, James checked his watch, and gave a start. "Sirius, we've only got a few hours! We need to get to Hogwarts _now_!"

Sirius smirked. "So do you think we should turn the Slytherin Commons pink or purple?"

James grinned evilly. "How about both?"

Back on the Hogwarts express, Harry was eagerly describing the new Quidditch moves he'd learned to Ron and Ginny, who were listening avidly. Also in the compartment were Hermione (reading a book), Neville (cooing to his newest plant, the Mimbulus Mimbletonia) and Ginny's acquaintance Luna Lovegood (who was reading a magazine upside down).

The Prefect's badge on Ron's robes glistened brightly in the sun as he nodded enthusiastically to Harry's words. Harry suppressed a jealous twinge. He was happy for his friend, and not about to ruin something Ron had clearly earned.

"...so Dad pounds this bludger at my head – it must've been going 200 miles an hour – and I fling myself off my broom-"

"No!" Ginny exclaimed. "That's just stupid, Harry! Jumping off your broom, fifty feet in the air…"

"I said I flung myself, I didn't jump off, Ginny! You know, dramatic shouts, flailing limbs, and all that. I was holding on, so the bludger flew past, fooled. Success!"

Hermione looked up from her book skeptically. "What did you hold on to your broom with, then? What with your limbs flailing so dramatically and all."

Harry flushed. "Erm… my ankle, actually."

She snorted. "And you planned this?"

"Well, not exactly… but it turned out to be a great move, didn't it? I've perfected it by now, of course…" he stammered, trying to get Hermione off his case. Hermione huffed in disgust, and went back to her reading.

.:Smooth:. Decimare hissed sarcastically in his mind. Harry grumbled softly and sank deeper into the train seat.

The Great Hall was more noisy than Harry had ever heard it. He supposed it made sense – after all, there had been more than enough rumors generated over the summer to talk about. Harry didn't really focus on this, though. He was currently engaged in a conversation with Hermione about the Thestrals he'd seen pulling the school carriages not twenty minutes ago.

"Why does Dumbledore have them here, though?" Hermione puzzled as the trio and Ginny sat down at the Gryffindor table. This confused Harry as well.

"I don't know. All they do is pull carriages. Surely it would be easier to replace them with brooms?"

Hermione nodded pensively, while Ron added, "That would be so cool!"

"Yeah!" Harry echoed. Hermione, who was now looking around the hall in interest, suddenly made a sound of dismay.

"Harry, do you see that short woman up at the professor's table? I've been searching, and I think she's our new Defense teacher!"

Harry looked up, and, to his horror, was confronted by the face of Dolores Umbridge, the toad-woman from his trial. The woman who was convinced he was guilty, no matter the evidence. Harry felt rage bubble up within him, but quickly suppressed it. One of the most important things he had learned from Decimare was that anger clouds your judgement. The sword had emphasized that in battle, anger – even righteous anger – leads to mistakes, and as any idiot knew, mistakes lead to death. Harry had no intention of dying.

.:So you actually listen to my lectures, hmm? I'm impressed:. a voice echoed most suddenly in Harry's head, nearly scaring Harry half to death.

'You'd be surprised at how much I gather from your little speeches,' Harry responded in his mind, to which Decimare gave a contented hiss and fell silent.

"That woman is Dolores Umbridge," he told his friends. "She's one of Fudge's goons. She was at my trial at the start of August."

"But what's she doing here?" Ron demanded.

Hermione sighed in exasperation. "I _told_ you. I think she's our DADA teacher – Dumbledore must have hired her, although the reason why escapes me. I've heard of her, and this woman is power-crazed. She tried to have all werewolves rounded up and tagged!"

"Bet Lupin didn't like that," Ron commented, but was cut off by Dumbledore standing to speak. Harry felt a rush of contentment, and his worries about not seeing his guardians for the next four months drifted away. No matter how much he'd come to love the Potter Manor, Hogwarts would always be his home.

"Welcome, welcome, to another year at Hogwarts! I suspect that this year will be most interesting, as you will soon discover." Dumbledore's eyes seemed to twinkle brighter than usual. Harry searched his mind furiously to deduce what Dumbledore meant, but he drew a blank.

"But enough of that! Begin the Sorting!" Dumbledore cried, and Harry watched in mild interest as a group of first years were sorted into their respected houses. Soon enough the Sorting concluded, and with a clap of Dumbledore's hands, food appeared on the tables.

After an hour of contented eating, with students catching up from over the summer, the plates disappeared, and the hall grew silent as Dumbledore stood once more. "Before you trot off to bed, I'm afraid I'll have to burden you with a few announcements."

"Firstly, anyone interested in trying out for their Quidditch teams should see their respective captains for dates and times. The Forbidden Forest is, as always, off limits." The Weasley twins grinned, and Hagrid shifted uncomfortably for some reason. What was that all about?

"And thirdly, I am pleased to present to you your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Madam Dolores Umbridge. Now, you should also be aware of two gentlemen who will be-"

Dumbledore stopped in mid-speech. It seemed Umbridge had stood, and wanted to make a speech of her own. The students began to whisper loudly; clearly this woman didn't know how things were done at Hogwarts.

Sitting down smartly, Dumbledore gazed at Umbridge as if he wanted nothing more than to listen to her speech. Beside Harry, Hermione was fairly bristling; Ron eyed her uneasily, and backed away in case she decided to lash out at someone.

The toad-woman smiled brightly, making most of the students wince. She cleared her throat, giving a little "hem hem" and began speaking in a high- pitched, girlish voice. "Good day, children! I hope we can all have a wonderful year…" As the woman droned on, Harry found himself staring around at the Great Hall rather than at the speaker.

Over at the Ravenclaw table Cho Chang was happily chatting with her friends, beautiful as ever. And over at the Slytherin table Malfoy was sniggering over something with his pet goons. If Umbridge noticed this lack of attention, she didn't call the students on it.

Suddenly, halfway through the speech, the Great Hall doors flung open dramatically. Harry was particularly glad at this interruption, for Hermione's face had been growing darker and darker at each of Umbridge's words.

He was even gladder, however, when he identified the two black-clad men who strode into the hall, looking not in the least perturbed that they'd interrupted the former Senior Undersecretary to the Minister in the middle of her speech.

Sirius Black and James Potter had returned to Hogwarts.


	17. Trouble in Paradise

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter 17 – Trouble in Paradise

"So sorry for the interruption," Sirius exclaimed brightly, apparently not uncomfortable in the least that the entire hall was gaping at him. "We lost track of time."

"Sirius got us lost," James explained to the hall, who were shell-shocked that a dead man and a convicted murderer were currently striding confidently towards the professors' table with not a care in the world.

"Well, how was I supposed to know that the passage between the Entrance Hall and the Slytherin Common Room had collapsed…" Sirius ground to a halt as he realized he'd just incriminated himself. "…not that we were _in_ the Slytherin Common Room, of course…"

Several students laughed nervously, but all sound cut off when Snape, scowl firmly in place, stood up abruptly and pointed an accusing finger at the duo.

"Headmaster," he began in clipped tones, "would you please explain why, exactly, Black and Potter are standing in this hall?"

Dumbledore smiled jovially. "I'm glad you brought that up, Professor Snape. Children, I am pleased to inform you that, due to undisclosed circumstances, Aurors Sirius Black and James Potter will be stationed for security detail at Hogwarts for this academic year."

The entire hall was wrapped in a blanket of silence, obviously not knowing what to make of this new development. The silence was broken by the Weasley twins, who chorused: "The Marauders at Hogwarts? _AWESOME_!"

Even though only a few people knew who the Marauders were, the twins' enthusiasm was enough to send the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws into an explosion of cheers. The Slytherins opted to glare sullenly from their table.

"Silence!" Snape snapped, scowl darker than ever. He turned to Dumbledore, obviously using every iota of willpower he possessed not to attack the two Aurors in front of him. "Headmaster, I must protest. You yourself disliked the idea of having Ministry Aurors posted at Hogwarts, so why are you now welcoming… _them_… here?" He said 'them' as if it were a terrible curse.

"I'm afraid I had no choice. They have a set of signed orders from Minister Fudge himself, so I can do nothing about it. Tragic, isn't it?" Dumbledore explained innocently, eyes twinkling.

"I… I refuse to work along side Black and Potter, Headmaster. I won't do it!" Snape declared.

"Well, if you truly feel that way, please feel free to clear off," James supplied helpfully. "We won't stop you. Sirius here can teach potions for you."

"That's right," Sirius agreed with a slightly scary smile. "We all know how much I _love_ potions…"

"You destroyed every potion you touched," Snape sneered.

"…although your dungeon could certainly use some redecorating…"

"Mister Black…" Dumbledore began.

"…I'm thinking pink and purple bunnies… maybe with a few daffodils and marigolds; nothing like yellow and orange to spruce a place up a bit…"

"Black! You-" Snape snarled.

"…plus, I'll be head of Slytherin house! I've always thought their mascot needs a change. Snakes are so last Thursday… budgies would do a lot more for their image…"

Sometime during all this, Professor Umbridge had recovered from her shock at being interrupted, and was preparing to take charge of the situation. Thankfully, Dumbledore beat her to it.

"Silence, gentlemen! Professor Snape, you are under no circumstances resigning, meaning Mister Black will not be changing anything in Slytherin house."

"-but Headmaster-"

"You will work with Mister Black and Mister Potter, Professor. End of debate."

"You would do well to respect the decisions of the Minister for Magic, Mister Snape." Umbridge chirped in a sickeningly sweet voice, causing James to wince at the high pitch. Snape scowled. "Although Mister Black and Mister Potter would also do well to remember a certain amount of decorum is expected in an educational facility such as this."

The two Marauders shared a glance. With a deep bow, James replied formally: "Please forgive us, Madam Umbridge, we forgot ourselves. If you please, my associate and I shall take our leave from this magnificent feast. Good evening."

Giving Umbridge a slightly over-the-top bow, James spun and strode briskly from the hall, Sirius half a step behind him. The students watched the duo depart with wide eyes… all except Harry's circle of friends, who were giving him 'what-the-hell-is-going-on?' looks. Harry moaned and let his head thunk down on the table.

Once the Great Hall doors swung shut, Sirius turned to James and remarked casually, "I thought we hated Dolores Umbridge."

"Oh, but we do."

"Ah."

The two strolled amiably up the grand staircase.

"So we lull her into a false sense of security?" Sirius guessed.

"And then hit her hard and fast," James agreed.

They continued on in silence.

"Do we get Harry and his friends in on this?"

"If you like."

Sirius shrugged. "Works for me."

Back in the Great Hall, Harry had recovered, and was now watching in a total lack of interest as Umbridge bullied herself back into the spotlight to conclude her speech. The hall once again sank into a blank stupor, the only exception being Hermione, who had resumed glaring at their new professor.

'I wonder what she's so upset about,' Harry puzzled to himself. He nearly jumped when Decimare mentally responded; he still hadn't grown used to having a second voice in his head.

.:Your friend is find's issue with Madam Umbridge's words. I can't say I blame her:.

'Why?' Harry asked in surprise. 'I thought it all a load of drivel.'

.:There's something important hidden in that drivel:. the snake replied grimly.

'Really? What?'

.:Figure it out yourself:. the snake snapped .:Surely you're intelligent enough to do that much on your own:.

"Ahh!" Harry cried out loud in exasperation. Thankfully no one noticed, as Umbridge had finished her speech and the students were now heading off to bed. Correction: no one except Hermione heard him.

"'Ahh' what?"

"What?" Harry asked frantically, trying to cover his slip, and failing miserably. 'Stay cool and calm' he reminded himself. 'Project a confidant image, and no one will doubt you. Law 12 of S. Black's Laws to Avoid Getting into Trouble.' "I was just… er… frustrated by Umbridge's speech. Say, what did you make of it?"

Hermione frowned, thankfully forgetting his slip. "The Ministry is getting too bold. Now they're trying to take over Hogwarts, of all things! I reckon it's because Fudge's scared of Dumbledore, afraid he'll take his position as Minister."

Harry was understandably shocked at this revelation, but managed to reply smoothly nonetheless. "Well, we all know that Fudge is a fool. I suppose we'll just have to watch our step around Dolores Umbridge, and wait to see how this whole situation plays out."

"Indeed," Hermione agreed darkly.

"Boys dorms are this way, girls please follow me," Hermione announced in carrying tones to Gryffindor's new first years, Prefect badge glinting on her robes. Beside her, Ron stood scowling, clearly eager to be off to bed, yet denied that right by Gryffindor's newest female Prefect.

"See you in a few minutes, mate," Harry offered sympathetically as he trudged upstairs. Upon entering the dorm, Harry immediately spotted the tension radiating from Seamus Finnigan, who was standing in the middle of the room with a dark scowl fixed on his normally cheerful face. From the way he cut off his speech abruptly, he must have been talking about Harry.

"Hey Harry!" Dean greeted. "How was your summer?"

"Excellent. And yours?" Harry returned as he proceeded past Seamus to his bed, where he slowly pulled on his pajamas. Dean winced as Seamus growled angrily.

"Absolute rubbish, thanks for asking," the Irish boy grumbled.

"What's wrong with you, Seamus?" Harry asked in confusion. He'd never seen Seamus acting this way. "You alright?"

"Me mam's on the warpath. Read all about you and Dumbledore's claims of You-Know-Who's return and all that in the Daily Prophet. She's right miffed about it all; didn't want me coming back here."

"Because of me," Harry concluded. "No offense, Seamus, but your mother needs to read between the lines. Only a fool would blindly follow what that idiotic paper writes-"

"Don't you insult my mother, Potter! You're… you're worse than a Death Eater!" Before Seamus could blink, Harry's wand was pressed against his forehead, directly between his eyes. Harry, although absolutely furious at the accusation, made sure he appeared calm and collected as his guardians had taught him.

"How dare you say that. _How dare you_! My entire life I've been fighting against evil, and this is what I get in thanks! An ignorant Irishman with a skull thicker than a troll's!"

"What's going on here?" Ron, who'd entered sometime during Harry's outburst, gave the boys a perturbed look. Seamus snarled, eyes never leaving the wand pressed between his eyes. Ron's eyes widened. "Harry, stop it!"

Harry ignored his friend, blood boiling. How could people be so blind?

Ron sighed. "Ok, would someone tell me what's going on?" he repeated. Neville, who had spent the entire argument on his bed soothing his Mimbulus Mimbletonia (which apparently didn't like loud noises), was the one to reply.

"Seamus was telling Harry about his summer, and-"

"He was having a go at me mam!" Seamus spat, but quietened instantly when Harry pressed the wand harder into his forehead in warning. Ron stared in disbelief.

"But we like your mother!"

"That was until she started believing every word the bloody Prophet prints!" Harry snarled.

"Oh…"

"Would you tell this psycho to stand down?" Seamus demanded furiously. Harry eyed him angrily, but at Ron's warning look, he reluctantly lowered the wand. With a flick of his wrist, the wand returned to its holster, and Harry sank to his bed with a sigh. Seamus backed off shakily, eased himself onto his own bed, and wrenched the curtains shut.

"Don't worry, mate. He'll come around. They all will, eventually," Ron offered comfortingly.

"Yeah! I believe your story, and so does my grandma! She's always said that Fudge is a bungler!" Neville added optimistically. Harry sighed.

"Thanks, you guys. I just get so frustrated sometimes…" Harry trailed off with a sigh.

"Don't worry about it," Ron said firmly. "Sleep! You'll feel better tomorrow, I promise."

"I'll hold you to that," Harry replied sleepily as he tugged his curtains close. Pulling his covers over his body, Harry didn't even remove his glasses or ring before slipping off into not-so-peaceful dreams.

Taking a sip of wine, James frowned in thought as he puzzled out his next move. The marble chess pieces glinted in the firelight, shuffling restlessly, eager to battle. Finally he found his next move, and watched in satisfaction as his ebony knight charged valiantly forward and brutally clobbered the cowering white bishop.

"Your move," James said smugly. His game partner, Sirius, only laughed. "What?" James demanded.

"Oh, nothing," the ex-convict responded, trying and failing to stifle his laughter. Sirius grinned, gesturing to the board. James frowned, and carefully studied the layout of the chess pieces. Then he spotted it.

"Whoops."

Sirius cackled. "You left your queen wide open, Prongs! Get your head in the game!"

"Shaddup," James grumbled.

"Aww, is Prongsie sad?" Sirius chirped. "Poor ickle Prongsie-kins…"

"_You obnoxious prat_!" James roared, knocking over the chessboard as he leapt at Sirius, who jumped away with a laugh. Thus began a merry chase about the sitting room that connected the two men's suites.

"Is ickle Prongsie mad at me?" Sirius taunted, scrambling over an upturned sofa.

"_GIT_!" James yelled, sending a curse flying after him. Sirius yelped in a rather dog-like manner, and pulled out his own wand to send a counter-course spiraling back at his pursuer. Neither seemed to care that they were running the danger of completely destroying their sitting room.

"Pathetic," a cold voice drawled from the doorway. "But then, what else could be expected from a convicted criminal and his delinquent friend? Some Aurors you are, attacking your own partners-"

Snape was cut off by a _Silencio_ spell, courtesy of a rather miffed Sirius.

"What do you want, Snivellus?" Sirius demanded. "Speaking of which, how did you get in?"

Snape scowled, pointing to his throat. James removed the spell reluctantly.

"You forgot to set a password, Black. The depth of your complete ineptitude astonishes even me. And the Headmaster sent me to get you; he wishes to see you in his office."

"When?"

Snape smirked. "About five minutes ago. I'll leave you to that, then."

"Oh no you don't!" Sirius roared after Snape, who scurried from the room. "Bastard."

"Don't let Snivellus get to you," James replied comfortingly. "He's just bitter."

"Yeah," Sirius agreed with a laugh, heading for the door. "Bitter that he hasn't had a girlfriend in fifteen years!"

"More like never." Their laughter echoed through the halls as the two made their merry way to Dumbledore's office.

"Sugar Quill," James guessed.

"Cockroach Cluster," Sirius countered.

"Fizzing Whizbees."

"Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans."

"Maybe Muggle sweets?"

"Worth a try. Skittles."

"What kind of a dumb name is Skittles? Musketeer."

"'Marauders' sounds better. M&M's."

"What does that stand for?"

"Who cares? Cookies."

"That's not a sweet!"

The gargoyle gave the Marauders a deep bow and stepped aside at Sirius's words.

"Well, it worked, didn't it?"

"Shaddup," James snapped peevishly, stepping onto the rotating staircase. The stone steps carried the duo up to the office door, which glided open before James could sound the knocker.

"Come in, gentlemen," a pleasant voice rang out, yet James could have sworn there was a hint of urgency in the tone. Entering the office, James and Sirius took seats across from Dumbledore, who looked almost worried, if the eternally optimistic Headmaster was capable of such an emotion.

"Mister Potter, I need you to go to your family vault immediately."

James blinked. "At eleven at night? Why?"

Dumbledore sighed. "I need you to see if Salazar Slytherin's sword and Merlin's shield are still in your vault."

"Well, of course they are. They haven't moved since they were first put there, when Gringotts was built. The only people who've been in the vault were Potters, and they wouldn't move the sword and shield. They'd know better."

"Nevertheless, I would like you to visit the vault. Now, if you please." Dumbledore's tone left no room for argument.

"Sure thing," James responded, reasonably jolted. Did Dumbledore think something had happened to the artifacts? He took the portkey Dumbledore offered him, and disappeared with a pop. Five minutes passed in silence, until James reappeared with a panicked look on his handsome face. Dumbledore sighed, and closed his eyes wearily.

"It is as I feared, then. They are gone."

"Both of them," James confirmed shakily. "But how? Gringotts would have known if a break-in occurred!"

"Things aren't always what they seem, James. Do you recall who you gave pass keys to your vault to?"

James frowned in thought. "Well, me, of course. I also gave one to Sirius… Remus… and… oh, _bloody _hell…"

"Peter," Sirius stated in sudden realization. "When your parents died sixteen years ago, you gave a key to each of the Marauders. Because we were like family, you said. That treacherous rat…"

"Are you saying Peter stole the sword and shield?" James demanded of Dumbledore, who nodded slowly.

"That is why I am worried. About a month ago, Severus Snape witnessed Mister Pettigrew holding a roundish object whilst scurrying about Lord Voldemort's hideout. Pettigrew then disappeared, and has been gone for over a month. Severus only discovered that the package was actually a shield when he overheard Voldemort speaking to Lucius Malfoy. It seems the Dark Lord sent Peter to retrieve the shield, but Peter had an attack of conscience and instead of handing it over, took the shield and made a run for it."

"So you're saying a lying traitor is currently… somewhere… with Merlin's shield, trying to outrun the Death Eaters?"

"Precisely."

"We're doomed," Sirius declared gloomily.

"What about Slytherin's sword?" James demanded.

"We don't know," Dumbledore said simply. "It disappeared, and Severus claims Voldemort has no idea where it is. A fact which is annoying the Dark Lord greatly, I'm pleased to say."

"This is bad," Sirius said. "Peter was always good at hiding. It could be years before we find him."

"A sword that's disappeared off the face of the planet, and a shield we can't find. Brilliant," James said glumly.

"At least Voldemort has neither," Sirius pointed out. "As long as Pettigrew doesn't hand the shield over, of course."

"Yeah… so what do we do now?"

"We send out a search party, and pray that Mister Pettigrew has finally turned from the Dark side," Dumbledore explained grimly.

"We're doomed," Sirius repeated.

The following morning dawned bright and early. Well, it wasn't actually bright, but the early-ness made up for it. At precisely 4:00 am, Harry was woken from his not-so-peaceful dreams by the less-than-pleasant mental screech of Decimare.

.:Get up, you lazy child! We have so much to do, and so little time:.

'What are you talking about?' Harry demanded groggily as he slowly pushed himself upright.

.:Training, Master, training! Now that you're at school, the only time you can train is right now. So we train:.

'Rubbish,' Harry replied firmly. 'I'm going back to sleep.'

.:Oh, really? Very well. I won't train you any longer, then. Your lessons are officially over, as of now, since you are incapable of getting your _lazy behind out of bed_:.

Harry groaned. 'I'm moving, I'm moving!'

Ten minutes later found Harry jogging quickly around the perimeter of the lake. The very large, dark, scary lake with hostile inhabitants. Fun.

'This… is… so… dumb…' he hissed at the stone ring around his finger. 'Couldn't… we… do… this… after… the… effing… sun… rises?'

.:If you do that, people will see you and wonder what you're up to. Then they won't leave you alone, and they'll find out about me, and your secret will be revealed:. Decimare explained.

'Right…' Harry huffed.

Five laps, one hundred pushups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks later, Harry had finally finished his 'warm up'.

.:Only half an hour that time. You're improving. Somewhat:.

'Just shift form so I can finish training and go back to sleep, would you?'

Decimare huffed, but complied. Harry watched in fascination as the ebony ring liquefied, elongating into the familiar form of the long sword Decimare. Once owned by Salazar Slytherin, of all people. Harry was _so_ dead if anyone found out he'd taken the sword.

With Decimare in hand, Harry shifted to the proper stance and began his standard training session, executing blocks and attacks against an invisible opponent.

.:Attack! Good… feet wider apart, genius, you're going to fall… never mind…:.

Two hours later Harry was completely drenched in sweat, and more than a little tired, not to mention frustrated. Decimare must have picked up on the emotion, because he inquired what was wrong.

'I'll tell you what's wrong! I've been practicing my attacks and blocks for over a month now, all by myself. You told me that an important aspect of sword fighting is improvisation, but how can I improvise when I'm not fighting against anyone? I feel like I'm just practicing the same thing over and over!'

.:You are:. the snake snapped. .:How can you expect to fight and beat anyone if you can't even hold a sword without chopping your own legs out from under you:.

'But I can control the sword now. You said so!'

.:So I did:. Decimare agreed slowly. .:And you're right, I suppose. Alas, while I can shift form, I cannot create a partner for you out of thin air to practice with-:.

Harry sighed. 'Well, I can't ask anyone to train with me – they'd learn about you, and I'd be done for. My dad would probably disown me or something. This is hopeless.'

.:_You are impossible_! Let me finish my sentences. I can't create an enemy to battle against, master, but _you_ can:.

This stopped Harry in his tracks. 'I can? How?'

.:A spell… an ancient one. Basically a simpler version of the highly complicated spell used today to create material spirits for short periods of time:.

'And do you know this ancient spell?' Harry pressed.

.:Of course! Do you think I would actually offer a solution without having the means to accomplish it? What do you think I did for a thousand years locked up in a vault full of Dark Arts books, hibernate? Use your head, master:.

'Wait! Hold on a minute! Dark Arts books? Are you saying this little spell of yours is the Dark Arts?' Harry demanded. He didn't object to being taught sword fighting by a sword he stole, but practicing the Dark Arts was a different matter entirely. To his surprise, Decimare actually sounded disgusted.

.:Are you so blind that you cannot see the truth of things, master? The Dark Arts are only called Dark because the spells are used to harm people and things. Then you would have to call other spells the Dark Arts as well, for they too can harm people. _Accio_ a knife to you with someone in-between you and it, and they will be stabbed. _Wingardium Leviosa_ someone out a window then end the spell, and they will fall ten stories to their deaths. _Alohomora_ a murderer's cell door, and they will escape and go on a killing spree, all because of you. If you think that way, every spell is essentially the Dark Arts, so does that mean you shouldn't cast spells anymore, because you might hurt someone:.

'No…'

.:You behave responsibly, use caution, and there is no problem. The Dark Arts are only classified as 'evil' because the ruling powers believe they are the most dangerous of spells. I myself was created from Dark magic, yet I am not evil, am I:.

'Well, I wouldn't say that…'

.:I am just a tool, the same as those spells you call 'dark':.

Harry frowned. "What you say makes sense, Decimare, but I'm certain that someone has told me that the Dark Arts are addictive, that once you start using them, you can't stop. Wingardium Leviosa certainly isn't addictive, is it?"

.:It's all intent, master. If you are an evil person, then all the spells you do will be evil, because you yourself are evil. If you are a good person, then you are using dark spells for a good cause, and there can't be anything wrong with that. This spell I will teach you is Dark, yes, because it used to be used to create material soldiers and assassins to kill the enemy. But you will use it simply to create a dueling partner. You will not use this spell to hurt or kill anyone, simply to practice with. Does that make the spell dark, if used in the manner you will employ:.

"Well… no, I suppose," Harry puzzled. "Even if what you say _is_ true, Decimare… I mean, the Dark Arts are evil! Everyone knows that!"

.:I urge you to think on it, Master. You are young, and have a great deal yet to learn. I know! Let me put it in terms that you will understand. Person A is walking down a deserted alley when he sees a mother approach with a young child. Person A raises his wand and kills the mother, simply because he likes killing. Person B, on the other hand, sees this going on, and, in an attempt to save the child, kills Person A. Who is at fault? Who deserves a death sentence, and who deserves to go free:.

'Well, Person A is obviously guilty, because he murdered the woman. Person B was just defending the child.'

.:Exactly:. Decimare crowed. .:You understand:.

'What? No, I don't!'

.:Look. Person A is guilty because he used the spell with evil intent, yes? Good, we agree. Person B, however, still used a dark, evil, unforgivable curse, yet he did it to save the child, because he is a good person. It all boils down to intent, master. There is no such thing as the Dark Arts. It's how you use the spells that counts:.

Harry thought about it. The idea was preposterous – he knew that – for he'd been taught the past four years that the Dark Arts were evil, and they were, he was sure of it. But as much as he hated to admit it, the snake spirit had a point. Maybe he was spending too much time with Slytherin's prize sword. But then, what Decimare said made sense to him. Was he himself turning evil?

.:You aren't becoming evil, Master, you are just gaining a broader perspective of the world. You have always heard things from one side – the Light side. It's time you heard things from the other perspective for a change – seeing both sides of an issue will give you an immeasurable advantage in times to come:.

'I'll… I'll think about it, Decimare. It does make sense, even though it's complete blasphemy.'

.:Excellent! And once you get over your fear of using the Dark Arts, I can teach you the spell, and then we can take your training to the next level:.

'Ex-excuse me!' Harry spluttered. "I am _not_ afraid of the Dark Arts! I am just cautious about using them-'

.:Of course you are:. Decimare replied condescendingly. .:Very well. You shall consider the matter further before committing to anything. And then you will cede to my superior wisdom and do exactly as I tell you. This concludes our training session:.

With a slurp, the great black sword shifted smoothly back into its ring form.

'This discussion is not over, Decimare!' Harry snapped at the ring, but he received no reply. Huffing, Harry turned and trudged back to the castle, noting glumly that it was 7 am, making it too late for him to take a nap before breakfast. He mentally cursed Decimare, but then reminded himself that it was his decision to accept the training. Hell, it was his decision to take the sword from then Potter vault in the first place. Stupid spontaneous decisions.

Back at the Gryffindor tower, Harry sighed as he wriggled back into his pajamas, and dove under the covers as Ron woke up with a yawn beside him. He couldn't be caught getting up early, or people would suspect. He too pretended to wake, mimicking Ron's loud yawn, before accidentally hitting his head on the bedpost. Wincing, Harry thought tiredly, "This is going to be a _long_ day."


	18. Back to Class

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Eighteen – Back to Class

"I hate Mondays," Ron groaned to Harry, who could only nod in agreement. It was taking all his willpower not to fall asleep in his bowl of porridge as it was. Training with Decimare had taken all his energy, and add to that the mental stress the snake was putting him through – well, he was just lucky he'd been able to get out of bed.

"Amen to that," Ginny agreed fervently, plopping down next to the duo. "Hermione'll be down in a few minutes – she's having a little trouble with her hair."

"Doing what?" Ron asked.

"Combing it, actually," Ginny replied with a grin. "I keep telling her to get it straightened, but _no_-"

"And a good thing to!" Ron exclaimed. "If she straightened her hair, she just wouldn't be Hermione, you know?"

"Well, you have to admit it's a little bushy," Ginny pointed out.

"Yes," Ron said stubbornly, "but I like it the way it is!"

Ginny giggled. "Sounds like someone's got a crush!"

"I don't!" Ron spluttered, and Ginny only laughed harder.

"Did I even mention you, Ronald? Got a guilty conscience, eh?"

"Shaddup," Ron snapped testily, turning back to his food and shoveling it in, purposely ignoring his sister. She focused on Harry instead.

"So, you looking forward to this year, Harry?" she asked in interest. "That Umbridge woman looks absolutely foul, if you ask me." Harry grunted in response. Ginny laughed. "You look really tired, you know. Either you couldn't sleep, or you where sneaking out somewhere. You went somewhere, didn't you? Without telling me too! Sneak!"

"What?" Harry protested. "I never admitted to anything of the sort! I didn't go anywhere! I'm just tired, is all!" He wasn't sure whether Ginny had any proof he was gone from the tower, or whether she was just bluffing, but either way he couldn't take any chances. He didn't want to know what would happen when someone found out he'd taken Decimare.

To his surprise, Ginny only grinned. "Of course you didn't Harry, I was just teasing you. No need to get so worked up about it, you know. And you should really eat that porridge rather than stare at it – that's what it's there for."

Harry sighed in annoyance that Ginny was mothering him, but ate the porridge all the same. He just couldn't say no to a pretty girl, he supposed. Not that he fancied her or anything! Absolutely not! It was just those completely random things about her, like how she was always there to support her friends when they needed her, or even how she teased Ron to get his mind off the impending doom that was Monday, that made Harry wonder how she was so amazing… but under no circumstances did he fancy her!

.:You are sadly in denial, Master:. Decimare told him mentally. Perhaps that was the snake's way of being reassuring. .:Speaking of being in denial, have you gotten over your hatred of the Dark Arts yet, so I can teach you that spell:.

'No,' Harry replied shortly. 'And I can hardly make up my mind about such an important thing with you badgering me about it. Besides, I shouldn't even be thinking about good and evil – I need to focus on my lessons! It _is_ the first day of school, you know.'

.:School is pointless. They should bring back the program of apprentices and apprenticeships. The student would learn twice as much, twice as fast:.

'Whatever you say,' Harry responded absently, more focused on Ginny's fiery hair, glinting in the morning sunlight, than anything else. The snake hissed in what might be amusement, and went silent. Shaking his head, Harry tore his thoughts away from Ginny's hair and refocused on his breakfast, which was only half eaten.

"Hi!" Hermione greeted perkily, hair neatly brushed and secured in two braids.

"I see you got your hair sorted out," Ron commented through mouthfuls.

Hermione gaped at him, before demanding: "Who told you I was having trouble with my hair? That's none of your business! Ginny!"

Hermione growled angrily at the redhead, who took one look at the murderous expression on Hermione's face – _she must be embarrassed that Ron knows about her hair problems_, Ginny realized; _she so fancies him_ – and jumped behind Harry, using him as a shield between her and the enraged brunette.

"Ginny!" Harry protested. "Let go!"

"Move, Harry," Hermione growled angrily, and Harry couldn't for the life of him figure out why she was so upset over her _hair_, of all things. "Don't you dare protect Ginny, Harry! Move!"

"What?" Harry gaped. "I'm not protecting her! I want nothing to do with this!"

Now Ginny rounded on him furiously. "Oh? You're not protecting me? That is so _typical_!" Now poor Harry was completely confused. Thankfully, Ron for once in his life said the right thing at the right time.

"Don't be so angry, Hermione. I like your hair the way it is. You shouldn't straighten it or anything." This stopped Hermione in her tracks.

"You mean you like my hair?"

"Yeah! It's really pretty… I mean… er…" Ron stammered, but Hermione's rage dissipated like a deflating balloon. With a slightly embarrassed smile, Hermione dropped the fist she was shaking at Ginny to her side, and pulled a plate of food towards herself.

_What was that all about_? Harry wondered to himself, but couldn't come up with an answer.

Breakfast progressed rather quietly, so it was quite a shock when, just as the meal was winding down, the entire Slytherin population suddenly turned into large canaries. Harry watched in awe as an evil looking blond canary began squawking loudly at two large, ugly, moss green canaries, who ignored the blond and continued pecking away at their food.

"Must be Canary Cremes," Ron suggested quietly to Harry, who'd already reached that conclusion. "My brothers are geniuses!"

"Yes," Hermione said, "but how did they sneak them into the Slytherins' food?"

"I suppose they got the house elves to help them out," Harry suggested.

"That's a possibili-" Ginny began before breaking down in laughter as she watched the evil blond canary squawk so exuberantly that it lost balance and fell off the table.

After a minute, however, Harry realized the canaries weren't turning back to humans, a fact which the rest of the hall quickly noticed. Professor McGonagall was furiously scanning the hall for the twins, but they were nowhere in sight. In all the confusion, Harry suddenly noticed that Fred and George weren't the only ones missing from breakfast; Hogwarts' newest security guards were also absent.

A minute later Umbridge made an appearance in the hall, took a quick, disgusted look at the mayhem, and strode back out, a slightly scary smile firmly in place. By now the majority of the hall was in hysterics, and Ginny was clutching Harry to prevent herself from falling over laughing. Harry found he didn't mind the physical contact at all.

Five minutes later, the Slytherins reverted to their usual, despicable forms, and the hall quieted down as the students reluctantly returned to their meal. Just as Harry and his friends were standing to leave, however, the Great Hall doors burst open, and Fred and George stumbled through, grinning, with a livid Umbridge and a smirking Snape right behind.

"Caught in the act," Ginny guessed with a sigh. "I suspect Gryffindor will be losing a large amount of points over this."

"We don't have any points yet," Hermione pointed out.

"Then they'll get detention instead. Poor buggers."

"They may not," Harry interjected. "Sirius and my Dad weren't here over breakfast either. If they had something to do with this prank, I imagine they'll have a plan to get the twins out of trouble."

"Do you think they pulled a prank together? The old and new generation pranksters, united together?" Ron shivered at the prospect.

"I dunno," Harry replied. "I know Sirius and Dad met the twins a few times over the summer, but I don't think they had time to get to know each other, let alone plan pranks."

Back at the doorway, Umbridge had calmed down a tad, and was now speaking to the hall at large, though especially to Dumbledore, with a triumphant smile. Snape stood by her side, backing up her words every so often.

"I found these two lurking around a ground floor hallway near the Entrance Hall," she simpered. "Strange that they weren't at breakfast, incidentally the same morning as a large-scale prank is pulled, hmm?"

"Strange indeed," Snape agreed, and Harry felt a rush of hate surge through him. The man was utterly despicable.

"Just what is your point, Madam Umbridge?" Dumbledore asked as pleasantly as he could through a mouthful of muffin. He clearly wasn't very concerned by any of this. Umbridge puffed up arrogantly.

"My point, Headmaster, is that these two children were behind this morning's atrocious prank!"

"You have no proof!" Fred protested.

"Then why weren't you in the hall?" Snape demanded.

"They were with me," James replied calmly as he strode into the hall. "My son informed me that they have knowledge of a secret passageway, and so I borrowed these fine gentlemen to show it to me. I can't keep Hogwarts safe if I don't know all the routes in and out of the castle, can I?"

Harry snorted. His father knew more about Hogwarts secret passages than anyone alive – excepting Sirius and Remus. It seemed his father _had_ been in on the prank. And speaking of Sirius, where was he?

Snape seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Harry.

"And while you were admirably doing your… er… job, Potter, where was your mutt? Oops, so sorry, I mean your partner, Black?" Snape demanded nastily.

"An excellent question, you overgrown bat… er… I mean, esteemed colleague," James replied happily, not to be outdone. "He was patrolling, of course. That _is_ his job, you know."

"And where is he now?" Snape shot back.

"Why, still patrolling, of course."

Translation: he was covering their tracks. Fortunately, Snape and Umbridge couldn't really disprove Sirius's alibi, so they resigned themselves to glaring at the grinning Auror.

"I think that Messers Weasley are guilty," Umbridge finally snapped. "I can't do anything about it – for now – but know that I will be watching." With a flourish of her robes, she spun dramatically and waddled out of the hall, reminding Harry rather unpleasantly of Aunt Marge.

James stared after the toad-like woman. "Lovely woman," he remarked, before turning and striding out of the hall after her. Snape, meanwhile, had flounced up to his seat and was now viciously stabbing his pancakes as he watched his hated rival saunter out of the hall.

Harry winced. He had potions second period, and it would be absolutely horrible if Snape's current behavior was any indication.

Fred and George slid in beside Ron, bright grins plastered on their faces. "Your Dad _rocks_!" they chorused at Harry, who grinned in response.

"So he and Sirius were in on the prank as well, then?"

"Course!" Fred exclaimed. "When you three dropped by Grimmauld Place, Mr. Potter and Sirius were very interested in our line of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes."

"We ran into them again this morning while heading down to the kitchens. They offered to help us out, extend the length of the time the canary spell holds, distribute the cremes, that kind of thing," George added.

"We'd never realized grownups could be so…" Fred began.

"Awesome?" George suggested.

"Amazing at trouble-making. They acted like they'd pulled pranks a thousand times."

"Professionals at all times. A pleasure to work with, I must say."

"Well, of course," Harry replied as if it were obvious. "They are Padfoot and Prongs, after all."

He was rather shocked when the twins grabbed him urgently and demanded: "Padfoot and Prongs, of the Marauders?"

"Yes," he replied uneasily.

"George, my boy, we just pulled a prank with _the_ Marauders!" Fred rhapsodized.

"I don't understand," said Ginny with a frown. "Is that a good thing?"

The twins gaped at her.

"Are you saying-" George began.

"-that you've never heard of the infamous Marauders?" Fred finished in astonishment.

"Should I have?" she inquired, intrigued, and Harry felt a pang of guilt. Ginny was an amazing girl, and Harry had almost completely ignored her the past few years. That will now change, he decided resolutely. _And no_, he told himself firmly, _that's not because I fancy her_!

.:Of course not:. Decimare hissed sarcastically.

Fred and George exchanged pained looks. "How much time till first period?" Fred demanded of Hermione, who looked slightly annoyed, but replied anyway.

"We've got about twenty minu-"

"Good. Follow us," George interrupted, and the twins jumped to their feet, grabbed their bags, and dashed out of the hall.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny exchanged a four-way glance, before Ron shrugged, and they followed the twins quickly. Fred and George, who were being very quiet for some reason, led them down a dark, murky hallway to Filch's office. Which meant that either the twins wished them to admire the décor, or they were planning to break in.

"No, no, no…" Hermione protested quietly. "This is a bad idea…" But the other five paid her no attention. The quartet watched in interest as Fred pulled out a wire and handed it to George, who wiggled it into the lock. With a soft click the door opened, and Fred hurriedly gestured them in, before shutting the door quietly behind himself. George, meanwhile, had approached the shelves lining the walls, and was now pulling out several enormous files, which he sorted into two piles.

"These," Fred said grandly, gesturing to the two piles, one of which towered over the other, "are records of pranks, misdemeanors, detentions, etc. of students."

"This," George continued, pulling out a file that was almost 1/50th the size of the smaller of the two piles, "is a normal student's file. These," he pointed to the smaller pile, "are Fred and mine files." The files were easily two feet high when stacked up. "They record everything we've done."

"Or at least, everything we've gotten caught for," Fred added with a grin. Ron stared at the files in awe, and Harry wasn't sure he wanted to know the thoughts flowing through his friend's head at the moment.

"So whose pile is that six foot tall one, then?" Ginny questioned. "Harry?"

"James Potter." Fred replied proudly. "Or, as we now know, Prongs. His is the second largest file, because he often played as diversion while the other three Marauders escaped. Sirius's is the largest – cause he's Sirius, I s'pose – and they keep it down in the dungeons, because it's too big to fit in here."

"Wow," said Ginny in awe, rifling through the files. "I didn't know it's possible to turn someone into a mushroom. Wouldn't they suffocate?"

"Plants breathe," Hermione replied absently, also looking through James's files. "They just do it differently than humans, is all."

"Wouldn't setting twenty Thestrals loose in the Slytherin Common Room merit more than a detention?" Ron demanded as he read a record. "Oh. Only two people complained. Seems the rest of the house was in on it. Ha! Snape broke his leg jumping behind a sofa!" Hermione frowned disapprovingly, but didn't comment.

"This, Ginny," Fred said reverently, gesturing towards James's file, "is the Marauder's Legacy. Four students, trouble-makers all, who practically invented the word mischief."

"Through pranking, exploring, and creating, the Marauders-"

"Moony"

"Wormtail"

"Padfoot"

"and Prongs"

"-ruled Hogwarts with an iron fist, and have become an enigma to all future generations of trouble-makers," Fred said solemnly.

"May their legacy last for ever," George concluded just as formally. The twins bowed their head, and Ginny goggled at them.

"You really take this pranking thing seriously, don't you?" she demanded weakly.

"That we do, sister dear, that we do," Fred replied, patting Ginny rather condescendingly on the head.

"Speaking of which," George exclaimed brightly, all previous formality forgotten, "I don't suppose you know who Moony and Wormtail are?"

"Moony is Remus Lupin…" Ron began.

"YOU'RE KIDDING!" Fred shouted, while George moaned, "A marauder teaching us a whole year and we never knew…"

"What about Wormtail? The name sounds vile…" said Ginny.

"Wormtail is none other than Peter Pettigrew," Harry said with a sigh, and Fred, George, and Ginny's eyes widened.

"Bloody traitor," Fred growled.

"What he did to Sirius…" George trailed off.

"How could a Marauder have gone dark?" They demanded in unison.

Harry frowned. "I don't know."

_Why did Pettigrew turn evil? _Harry asked himself as he headed towards History of Magic class. Well, Sirius had told him, hadn't he? Pettigrew liked being around powerful people, being himself a coward – when Voldemort showed up, Pettigrew saw him as the biggest kid in the playground and therefore joined him. Traitor.

But was he really? From what Harry had seen in his dreams, Pettigrew had stolen a shield Voldemort really wanted, meaning he had surely left the dark side. Or was this all some elaborate plot to make Harry _think_ Pettigrew had reformed, when really he hadn't?

"Bee in your bonnet, Harry?" Hermione inquired as the trio entered the History classroom.

"What? No, just thinking about… you know, stuff," he replied evasively. Ron, who had pulled a pillow out of his bag and propped it on his chair, saved him. He sat down and leaned back against the pillow with a sigh. Hermione glowered.

"Not paying attention is one thing, Ronald, but falling asleep!" Hermione scolded.

"I'll just copy off you anyway," he responded reasonably. Hermione bristled.

"No, you won't!" she snapped. "You are just as capable of taking notes as I am!"

"We aren't all as intelligent as you, Hermione."

"Intelligence has nothing to do with it!"

Harry tuned out their bickering with a sigh. This was going to be a _long_ day.

Potions, as could be expected, went horribly. Although Harry had studied potion-making over the summer with James and Sirius, this didn't prevent him from missing part of step three, causing his Draught of Peace to emit large amounts of thick, gray smoke, billowing in large clouds that obscured Ron's vision, causing him to mess up as well. Snape, still holding his permanent grudge against Harry, _Evanesco_-ed Harry's potion, resulting in a 0 for the day's work.

"Slimy git," Harry growled, piling potatoes onto his plate during lunch. "I know he hates me and all, but you'd think he could be a little less obvious about it!"

"Why don't you tell Sirius or your dad?" Ron suggested through a mouthful of steak. "They'd turn him into the slimy slug he is."

"Tempting, but no," Harry responded. "My guardians are a bit… overprotective. They'd probably kill Snape or something if they found out how terribly he's treated me."

"Yeah. Which wouldn't really be a bad thing, you know," Ron postulated. "I wouldn't mind."

Sirius, listening in on the hall's conversations (for security reasons, of course) from an overhead rafter on an Extendable Ear, growled. "Not murder, no, but severely injure or maim? Definitely."

Beside him, James chuckled grimly. _No one_ messed with the Potters. No one.

"So we deal with Snape, and then eat lunch, yes?" Sirius asked James as they strolled towards the dungeons. James was carrying a rather shiny, silver rod, stamped with a triple W, and both were wearing identical, pissed-off expressions.

"Harry never told me Snape mistreats him, and has been doing it for years," said James sullenly. "Maybe he doesn't trust me."

"Course he does," Sirius replied bracingly. "He's a teenager, isn't he? You respected and trusted the heck out of your parents, but you didn't tell them every time Snape was an ass. Or every time you did something illegal and possible life-threatening."

"I suppose," James conceded, brightening. "We're here!"

Sirius bent forward slightly and rapped his knuckles on the wooden door. They heard a muffled grumbling, and the door flung open to reveal an irritated Severus Snape, whose expression only grew darker when he recognized his visitors. He made to shut the door.

"I don't think so, Snivellus," Sirius snapped, shoving past Snape and into the room. James poked Snape with the silvery rod before the Potions Master could stop him, and it sent the man flying across the room, wrapping itself around his wrists as he flew.

"Once a bully, always a bully," Snape sneered as he pushed himself precariously upright. "Dumbledore may think you and Black are perfect, but your actions prove what you really are."

James glared at him in hatred, blood boiling. "I've done things I'm not proud of, Snape, everyone has! I'm sorry I treated you horribly, I really am, but you're no saint yourself! You taunted, teased, hexed, and generally made my friends' lives absolutely miserably every chance you got! You ratted on us, spied on us, picked fights with us… and now you're doing the same thing to my son!"

Snape smirked. "So that's what this is all about. Precious Potter didn't like Evil Professor Snape's classes, so he tattled to Daddy dearest. How quaint."

"Why do you treat him so horribly?" Sirius demanded furiously. "He's never done anything to you!" Snape's eyes darted to James. "Damn it all, Snape, he's not James! He's a different person! Why can't you see that?"

"He's a Potter. That's good enough for me," Snape snapped.

"You prejudiced bastard!" James roared, lunging towards Snape, who shrank back. Suddenly, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. The duo rounded on the cowering Potions Master.

"I'm only going to say this once, Snivellus," James stated coldly. "Leave my son alone. He's done nothing to you – he's not me! – so leave him be! I've been given a second chance at life, Snape, a second chance to be a father to my son, and I won't let you hurt him!"

"And if I do?" Snape sneered. "You going to come down here and hit me till I do as you say?"

Sirius smiled. "No. We'll leave you to your own conscience. You may have been a Death Eater, Snape, but deep down even you know it's wrong to abuse an innocent child. Guilt can consume a man, destroy him. Believe me, I know."

"Potter is far from innocent," the professor hissed.

"One day your conscience will catch up with you, Snape," James told him firmly, "and I will pity you when it does. Good day."

The duo gave Snape a final glare, before turning and striding out of the room, leaving Snape standing in the middle of his classroom, arms tied, flabbergasted. That was the most civil conversation he'd ever had with the duo – it hadn't even progressed to exchanging hexes. _Maybe they've matured_, he considered, before rejecting the thought.

With a sigh, Snape set off towards his desk to prepare his next class, and, more importantly, find a way to untie his bound wrists. Which would be difficult, seeing as the rod holding him was made of steel, and seemed to be coated in some sort of un-breakable, un-charmable substance. Wonderful.

"We will be studying dreams this term!" Professor Trelawney exclaimed brightly, mystic tones firmly in place. Harry groaned, whilst Parvati and Lavender looked ecstatic. Beside him, Ron had sunk his head into his hands, moaning quietly. Harry didn't blame him; they really should have dropped Divination like Hermione said. He returned his attention to Professor Trelawney, who had said a few more words, most likely instructions on dream interpretation, and was now passing out brown, leather-bound books, which were copies of the "Dream Oracle."

"Write down your dreams and interpret them using the Dream Oracle," Trelawney instructed, beaded necklaces jangling. Harry gestured to Ron to go first. His nightmares of Voldemort's rebirth didn't need interpretation, and he wasn't telling a soul about his visions – which weren't really dreams at all, come to think of it.

"You do one first."

"I never remember my dreams," Ron replied tiredly.

"You must remember _something_," Harry urged.

Ron screwed up his face in thought. "I think I dreamed about Quidditch. What do you reckon that means?"

"Probably that you'll be eaten by a giant marshmallow or something," Harry replied.

.:Dreams are windows to the soul:. Decimare hissed mentally to Harry, somewhat reprovingly.

'That's _eyes_, actually,' Harry replied, bored out of his mind. Divination was such a joke.

.:You have had many dreams, master, and not all of them you understand:.

'How do you know that?' Harry demanded. 'You can't see my dreams, can you?'

.:No, but I can tell when you do dream, and I can feel your reactions to them. There is one dream you have nightly, and you feel lost about it, confused:.

'Endless corridors, locked doors,' Harry remembered.

.:These are not ordinary dreams. I am not sure if they are dreams at all:. the snake hissed warningly.

'What do you mean? How do you know that?' Harry demanded again, but the snake did not elaborate. 'Fine then, keep your secrets. You know, you're the strangest thing I've ever seen. What are you, anyways?

The snake ring blinked, before shutting it's eyes, purposely ignoring his master. Disgruntled, Harry turned back to Ron, who'd fallen asleep, slumped over the parchment holding their calculations.

Harry glanced towards the wall-mounted clock – only fifty more minutes of torture until they were out of this ridiculous class and on their way to their first DADA lesson. And with Umbridge teaching that class, Harry expected it would be just as bad as Potions, if not worse.

.:You could just kill her:. Decimare offered.

Harry sighed. 'Don't tempt me.'


	19. Professor Umbridge

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Nineteen - Professor Umbridge

"Do you realize how much homework we've got already?" Ron grumbled as he and Harry made their way to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. "Binns set us a foot-and-a-half long essay on the Giant wars, Snape wants a foot on the use of moonstones, and now we've got a month's dream diary from Trelawney! Fred told me how difficult OWL year is, and he wasn't wrong, was he? That Umbridge woman had better not give us any homework…"

When they entered the class, they found Umbridge already seated at the teacher's desk, wearing the fluffy pink cardigan from the night before and a black velvet bow perched on top of her head. As their classmates entered, Harry made his way to a seat at the back of the room. According to Sirius, the back row was the best place to sit – it allowed you to survey the entire room, and was the least visible place to a teacher when doing something illegal.

Professor Umbridge stood, waiting till the class fell silent. It didn't take long; Umbridge was, as yet, an unknown quantity, and nobody knew how strict a disciplinarian she was likely to be.

"Well, good afternoon!" she trilled, and a few people mumbled "good afternoon" in reply.

"Tut, tut," said Professor Umbridge, "That won't do, will it? I should like you, please, to reply, 'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge'. One more time, please. Good afternoon, class!"

Harry's suspicions were confirmed – he definitely disliked this Umbridge woman. She was pompous, arrogant, and apparently thought her students were pushovers. As the class chanted back the greeting, Harry kept his mouth firmly shut, and saw Hermione and Ron doing the same. Umbridge apparently didn't notice their disobedience, and Harry wasn't sure whether he was pleased or displeased at this.

"There now," she said sweetly, "that wasn't too difficult, was it? Wands away and quills out, please."

Many of the class exchanged gloomy looks; the order "wands away" had never yet been followed by a lesson they had found interesting. Harry reached into his bag and pulled out a quill, ink, parchment, and the Marauder's Map. He'd never taken his wand out in the first place; it was safely held in his dragon-hide arm holster, a birthday gift from Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Professor Umbridge drew an unusually short wand out of her handbag, and tapped the blackboard sharply with it. Upon it appeared "Defense Against the Dark Arts, A Return to Basic Principles." She then proceeded to babble on about how their teaching of the subject had been fragmented, how their knowledge level far below what it was supposed to be, and that their problems would now be rectified.

After copying down the course aims and opening his copy of Defensive Magical Theory, Harry's mind wandered away from the class to the Marauder's Map that was lying on his desk. Quietly activating the map, Harry carefully perused it, not noticing the fact that Hermione was sitting with her hand in the air, book closed, a determined expression on her face.

_Ha! It's just as I thought!_ Harry crowed mentally as he examined the map. It showed a lot of things – secret passages, hidden rooms, some unlabelled room that kept changing dimensions – but it didn't have everything. More specifically, it didn't have the Chamber of Secrets drawn or labeled. Harry had been thinking about the Chamber quite a bit, and he'd come up with a very ingenious plan.

He needed somewhere better to practice with Decimare, since the lakeside was hardly hidden, so what better place than a huge, secret chamber that only he could access? And on the off chance Voldemort decided to visit his old haunt, Harry could add the Chamber to the map to see if anyone was making to enter it. Granted, there were a lot of less-than-pleasant memories tied to the place, but Harry had come out alive, after all, so he figured he could cope. He just hoped the basilisk's corpse wasn't still down there – that would be a pain to clean up. Not to mention the smell.

The first step, however, was to figure out how to add rooms to the map, and Harry was pretty sure simply drawing on the map wouldn't work. It seemed things were working in his favor – he could go see his father, who he missed already, as well as discover how to fix the map. Two birds with one stone!

A shrill voice jolted Harry out of his musings.

"Did you want to ask something about the chapter, dear?" Umbridge demanded of Hermione, who must have had her hand up for the past five minutes. Harry quickly scanned the first paragraph of Defensive Magical Theory, but found it to be complete rubbish. Maybe that was what Hermione was asking about.

"Not about the chapter, no," said Hermione.

"Well, we're reading just now," said Professor Umbridge, showing her small, pointed teeth. "If you have other queries, we can deal with them at the end of class."

"I've got a query about your course aims," Hermione informed her, and Harry noticed a tinge of disgust on her face.

"And your name is?"

"Hermione Granger."

"Well, Miss Granger, I think the course aims are perfectly clear if you read them through carefully," snapped Professor Umbridge.

"Well, I don't," said Hermione bluntly. "There's nothing in there about _using_ defensive spells." The class gaped, rereading the board. Harry scanned it carefully. Hermione was right!

"Of course not!" Professor Umbridge trilled. "I can't imagine a situation where you would need to defend yourself in my class. I am certainly not about to attack you! Your past teachers may have encouraged you to feel… unsafe in this class, but in my class your safety is assured. There is no reason to cast spells in my class, because there is nothing you need be scared of."

"What about the rest of the world? Outside Hogwarts?" Harry demanded of Umbridge, who frowned at him.

"Raise your hand before speaking, please."

Harry raised an eyebrow at her and lifted his hand into the air. _Keep your cool_, he told himself firmly._ You are smooth, confident, and sophisticated. You will not let this obnoxious woman get to you, no matter what she says_.

Beside him, Ron thrust his hand up.

"Name?"

"Ron Weasley," he said shortly. "What about what Harry said? What about outside threats?"

"There are no outside threats," Umbridge snapped. She turned back to Harry, who gave her a challenging glare. "Name?"

"Harry Potter. There _are_ outside threats."

"Like what?" Professor Umbridge asked with a rather nasty smile.

Harry realized instantly that she was baiting him, but found he couldn't stop himself. "Voldemort," he stated boldly, and the class gasped as Umbridge let out a triumphant smirk.

"Detention, Potter!" she sang out. "You were told last year and over the summer that You-Know-Who is alive. This. Is. A. Lie."

Furious, Harry made to leap to his feet, but Decimare hissed urgently, .:Don't stand! This is not the time, nor the place. Bide your time. The world will know the truth soon enough. Whatever happened to that common sense I thought you possessed:.

Harry fought down a sudden urge to strangle the obnoxious serpent, but retook his seat nonetheless. But he wasn't done quite yet.

"If it's lie, Professor Umbridge, then how did my father come back to life? How could he return to life _at the hand of the Dark Lord himself_, if Voldemort isn't alive?"

"That," Umbridge said slowly, obviously formulating an excuse as she went, "is Ministry business. Top secret, classified information, that I most unfortunately cannot go sharing with the common public."

Dislike towards this pompous, arrogant woman quickly turned to hate. Harry fought down the urge to attack her, very annoyed that this excuse was actually a very, very good one.

"I don't like your attitude, Potter. I think I'll take 5 points from Gryffindor for questioning my authority," Professor Umbridge said cheerfully, obviously trying to get a rise from him.

"Harry, don't!" Hermione whispered in horror, clamping onto his arm to prevent him from rising, but she needn't have. Decimare was right – this was neither the time nor the place to pick fights with Umbridge.

_I'll get revenge later_, Harry promised himself firmly as he studiously ignored Umbridge's mocking smile. The woman was worse than Malfoy, and that was saying something.

"_Detention_?" James roared, the fireplace behind him bursting into flames. "Because you told the truth? I'm going to _kill her_! Just watch me! Threatening my baby-"

"I'm hardly a child, Dad, but thanks for the concern," Harry said dryly, sipping from a butterbeer Sirius had smuggled into the castle. "It's only one detention, after all. I'm sure I'll survive somehow."

"Albus told us to keep a low profile," Sirius reminded James calmly. "We'll hardly do that if you decide to start killing Ministry employees."

"You're the one who threatened the Minister for Magic," James accused, but the murderous glint thankfully left his eyes. Sirius merely grinned, as Harry knew he would. He was getting to know his guardians like the back of his hand – or, at least, so he thought. "So what do we do?"

The three sat quietly in contemplation, save the occasional crackle from the now burning fireplace. Suddenly, Sirius clapped his hands together and exclaimed, "I've got an idea! Sometimes passive resistance works better than violent rebellion, especially in situations such as yours, Harry."

James frowned pensively for a moment, before beaming. "I like it!" he declared. Both turned to Harry as if waiting for his confirmation. Harry, as usual, was completely lost.

"What on earth are you on about? Passive resistance? I don't get it."

"Well, I'll put it more simply for you," James offered. "Don't go."

"To what?"

"Detention."

Harry was shocked. "But I have to! I'd be expelled!"

"Nah, you wouldn't," Sirius reassured him. "Only the headmaster can really expel you, and Dumbledore likes you. Besides, you aren't skipping detention, you are protesting it. Student rights and all that."

"But… but… I'll get even more detentions if I 'protest'!"

"Professor Umbridge put you in detention because you were 'lying' about something, yes? Well, you weren't lying, so you therefore have a right to protest her miscarriage of justice."

"Passive resistance!" the duo chorused.

"Come on," James coaxed, "what could possibly go wrong?"

Harry laughed dryly. "With my record? I'll probably be thrown into Azkaban or something." The duos' faces fell. But they'd done their job well, because Harry was all but convinced to go ahead with the plan. Decimare swung the vote.

.:I told you before that it wasn't the right time or place to cross Umbridge. I think that now is the correct time, Master. Think of it as that revenge you promised yourself. Imagine the woman's face when you don't show up:.

Harry grinned. "Alright then, you've convinced me. Starting now I am protesting Professor Umbridge's injustice towards myself – and Fred and George this morning! – and am therefore refusing to attend her detention."

"Rebellion against authority!" Sirius crowed happily. "This is more like it! Hogwarts was starting to get dull!"

"We've only been here a day," James pointed out, "and I would hardly call our little encounter with Sna… uh… that friend of ours, dull."

Harry eyed his father oddly, but the man merely winked mysteriously. Harry considered pressing his father, but changed tactics when he remembered the second reason he'd come to see his beloved guardians.

"I've got a question, actually, that I was hoping you could answer."

Both men immediately focused on him.

"Shoot," Sirius prompted.

Harry decided to be blunt. "How can I add rooms or corridors to the Marauder's Map?"

Their eyebrows raised simultaneously. "Why?" they chorused.

"Oh, no reason," Harry said rather shiftily. "So?"

The duo exchanged another glance, before James turned back to his son and carefully explained the whole process to Harry, who wrote it all down on a sheet of parchment. Once James was finished, Harry was more than a little awed.

"You have to do all this just to _add_ stuff to the map? Then how hard was it to actually _make _it?"

"Well, it _was_ rather challenging," James said modestly.

"How did you figure all this out, anyway?" Harry demanded.

Sirius laughed. "We combined about thirty different spells, three different potions, and quite a bit of imagination to create it, so please try not to lose it like we did."

Harry grinned, mock saluting his godfather. "Yes _sir_!"

James, laughing, pulled his son out of his chair and shoved him towards the door.

"Alright, smart aleck, off with you. You need to be in someplace suitably public when Madam Umbridge seeks out her wayward student."

Harry smirked, backing through the door. "Whatever you say, master."

"Funny," said Sirius as Harry took off down the hall. "Hey, wait a minute! You never told us why you wanted to know about the map… HARRY JAMES POTTER! GET BACK HERE!"

James snorted. "He's getting better at keeping secrets, isn't he? Calm down before you get an ulcer, Padfoot. Honestly, you're so mature at times it's really quite frightening."

Sirius rounded on James. "You did _not_ just say that." James waggled his eyebrows playfully. Sirius roared, flying tackling his best friend, sending them crashing across the room.

"Alright, I take it back! I take it back!" James pleaded, seeing as Sirius was armed and he was not. Sirius smiled pleasantly, all former anger forgotten. His mood swings always kept James on his toes.

"I," he stated grandly, "am the epitome of immaturity." They looked at each other, before dissolving into laughter on the floor. A lady in a portrait on the wall remarked with a tolerant smile, "Boys will be boys."

James laughed. "Madam, you have _no_ idea."

It was 5:15, and Harry was officially on strike against Umbridge's unjust 5 o'clock detention. Twirling his wand absently, Harry strolled through the library, giving a courteous smile to every female he passed. Might as well brush up on his skills when he had the time.

"Looking lovely as always, Susan, Hannah," Harry offered the pair of Hufflepuffs, who giggled outrageously. "Madam Pince! Always a pleasure to be in the presence of one so charming and intelligent. I don't suppose you're single, by any chance?" He winked rather suggestively, and Madam Pince actually emitted something that could have passed for a giggle, had she been about fifty years younger.

"I'm happily married, Mister Potter, thank you very much. And even if not, I'm afraid I don't generally take up with younger men."

Harry offered her a charming smile. "All those poor young men out there must be heartbroken, my dear lady! Well, do carry on, I wouldn't want to disturb you." The stern old woman huffed, but looked much happier all the same as she swept off to yell at students for mistreating her precious books. Harry laughed inwardly – Sirius and James were absolutely correct. Flirting was _way_ too much fun.

Continuing on his way, Harry rounded an aisle to discover Hermione and Ron seated at a table, Hermione studiously examining her notes, and Ron studiously examining Hermione. Harry suppressed a laugh; Ron was so obvious it was just plain sad. To bad he had, as Hermione had stated earlier, the "emotional depth of a teaspoon." Alright, that was a little harsh, but still! If he just confessed his feelings to Hermione, it would save Harry a lot of grief from listening to their constant, never-ceasing bickering. Speak of the devil…

"Ron, don't do that," Hermione said abruptly. Ron looked startled.

"Do what?"

"That." Hermione gestured to herself. "Staring. It's terribly difficult to concentrate with you goggling like that."

Ron's ears went scarlet. "I – I – I was _not_ goggling!"

"Then what were you doing? Not studying, as usual, hmm?"

"I study plenty, thanks very much!"

"Oh, of course!" Hermione scoffed. "Because to you studying is right up there with Potions homework or detention-"

Harry chose that moment to sweep into the scene, robes swirling behind him. It was so much fun to make a dramatic entrance. Hermione and Ron turned to him, startled, before their eyes widened simultaneously.

"Speaking of detention…" Ron said. "Don't you have one with Professor Umbridge right now?"

Harry grinned. "That's right."

Ron's eyebrows shot up. "Oh. Alright, then."

Hermione, however, was not satisfied with his response. In fact, she looked downright furious. "Are you _insane_?" she demanded. "You're skipping detention on purpose? They'll expel you!"

"They won't," Harry corrected her. "And I am certainly _not_ skipping detention. I'm refusing to go, on the grounds that it was unfairly given. Sirius and Dad call it passive resistance."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh, it just _figures_ that they're in on this. Professor Umbridge shouldn't be crossed, Harry, she's bad news! Remember to whom she reports! The Ministry! Fudge can and probably will use this against you!"

"Hermione," Harry said. "I will not spend this year being pushed around by this obnoxious woman just because she reports to Fudge. I will not stand down and let her – what did you say? – 'Interfere at Hogwarts'? Because that just doesn't work for me."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Fine, Harry. Do what you like. I can't say I agree, but… well…"

"You can't say you disagree?" Ron put in helpfully.

Hermione glared at him, gave Harry a disgruntled look, and turned back to her notes with a frustrated sigh. "I just want to make it clear that I in no way support your rebelling against teachers Harry. It's completely against the rules!"

"It's alright," Harry told her with a grin, sitting down and stretching with a yawn. "I won't compromise your position as Prefect."

Hermione smiled slightly as she continued taking notes, and Harry mentally gave a sigh of relief. He'd interpreted her words correctly, then. A good thing, or else she'd probably be yelling at him rather than calmly reading her book.

Ron gave him a small smile. "Crisis averted, eh?"

"Yeah. Thank god for that."

Ron suddenly looked distinctly shifty. "Umm, I'd love to help you with your passive resistance thing, mate, but I have a… uh… previous engagement that I need to… uh… go to. Yeah. See you!" And with that Ron grabbed his bag and all but ran from the library.

"What's up with him?" Harry wondered aloud, and beside him, Hermione shrugged her shoulders before turning back to her homework. Well, when in Rome… Harry dutifully pulled out his own half-finished essay and began working on it. Might as well do something while he waited for his confrontation with a most likely enraged Professor Umbridge.

He wasn't disappointed. Five minutes later, a positively steaming Professor Umbridge burst into the library, shrieking Harry's name. Smirking, he settled back in his chair and mentally prepared for the upcoming debate, firmly ignoring the irritated glances Hermione kept sending his way.

"POTTER!" Umbridge shrieked, "I WANT TO SPEAK WITH YOU NOW! GET OVER HERE THIS INSTANT! I'LL-"

She was suddenly cut off in mid-screech by Madam Pince, who had her wand out and had spelled the shrieking woman's mouth shut.

"I WILL NOT HAVE YELLING IN THIS LIBRARY!" Madam Pince bellowed somewhat counter-productively. "If you have a problem with Mister Potter, then take it outside, Dolores, because this is _my_ library, and you _will not_ disturb it!"

Umbridge glared furiously at her, but finally nodded angrily, and the spell was removed. Plastering a clearly fake smile on her beet-red face, Umbridge chirped sweetly, "Mister Potter, a word outside, if you please."

Harry sent Madam Pince a smile, which she surprisingly returned, and set off after Umbridge. It seemed Madam Pince wasn't as frosty as she appeared; he'd have to talk to her more often. With that slightly cheerful thought, Harry returned his attention to Professor Umbridge, who was smiling in a sickening sort of way, previous anger carefully hidden away behind her pompous exterior.

"Mister Potter, I am afraid you may have misunderstood me in class," she said sweetly. "I asked you to see me in my office at 5:00 for detention this evening."

"I understood you perfectly," Harry snapped.

"Well, then, you can of course imagine my confusion when you didn't turn up on time, Mister Potter," she said in strained tones. "I was wondering why, exactly, you felt yourself above attending detention."

"I disagree with your reason for punishment," Harry told her bluntly. "I believe your punishment is a serious miscarriage of justice, and therefore rebelled by refusing to attend your detention."

Around them, a crowd of intrigued students grew; everyone was eager to see a facedown between Harry Potter and Hogwarts' newest – and allegedly most puffed-up – teacher.

Professor Umbridge's smile slid away and was replaced by a full-blown glare. "I am your teacher, Potter. I don't care what you think of my reasons – it's your duty to attend any detentions I hand out. I don't have to explain myself to you."

"Why? You don't have to explain yourself to me, but I do to you? I thought we were all equal in the eyes of the law! Are you saying that you are – essentially – _more_ equal than me?" Harry mock-gasped, purely for the benefit of the crowd of students gathered around them. "Are you saying you are… _better_ than me?" The crowd swiveled towards Umbridge, eyes wide.

Umbridge, caught off-guard by the accusation, stared for a moment before gathering herself together. "_Mister_ Potter, I think you need to speak with Headmaster Dumbledore about respecting your elders. Come with me. _Now_."

She waddled off down the corridor, leaving a thoroughly annoyed Harry to trundle along behind her. As they rounded the corner, Harry was pleased to hear the crowd whispering furiously about "elders" and "respect". _Heh heh heh. Fomenting rebellions is fun_.

Harry followed Umbridge silently up to Dumbledore's office, not, as Umbridge probably hoped, contemplating his imminent doom, but in fact admiring Hogwarts architecture. The carvings in particular were exquisite, especially one off the third floor staircase in the shape of a dragon. The detail was just amazing.

.:You are having far too much fun with this:. Decimare hissed disapprovingly.

'Shaddup,' Harry replied good-naturedly.

Soon enough, unfortunately, they reached the door to Dumbledore's study, which was closed and had voices coming from within. Harry listened in interest as he heard snatches of Snape yelling at someone furiously.

"-BLASTED THINGS ON ME… COULDN'T GET THEM OFF… SOME SORT OF UNBREAKABLE… HAD TO DISMISS MY CLASS BECAUSE OF IT… COULDN'T TEACH WITH MY HANDS BOUND…"

"Severus," Dumbledore's calming voice broke in. "Do calm down, please. What do you expect me to do? You got the rod to untie you in the end, did you not? No harm done, then, just a bit of embarrassment…"

"What I want is to see some punishment!" Snape yelled, sounding very much like Argus Filch.

"Yes, well, I'm sure Messers Black and Potter merely meant it as a joke, Severus. Since you won't tell me why you were talking with them in the first place, I can only assume that was the case."

Harry heard Snape exhale loudly, obviously unwilling to tell Dumbledore why he was talking to James and Sirius. Harry was wondering the exact same thing. Why on earth were his guardians visiting and tying Snape up? And why wouldn't Snape say why they were talking in the first place?

Harry jumped back as Snape flung the door open and stalked through, although he paused when he saw Harry and Professor Umbridge.

"Madam Umbridge," he said courteously. "Potter." He leaned closer. "I suppose you heard everything, then? Fifty points from Gryffindor."

Harry gaped at him, astonished. Snape merely glared at him. "You'll be losing twice as much the next time you go running to daddy dearest." With a swish of his robes, Snape stalked off down the hall, leaving an extremely confused Harry and a delighted Umbridge behind him.

"Come in," Dumbledore called, and Umbridge shoved Harry into the office, closing the door behind her. Dumbledore smiled faintly, un-stuck two lemon drops, somehow avoiding Harry's gaze the whole time. Perhaps Dumbledore really _was_ distancing himself from him on purpose? "Ah, Mister Potter! Whatever is the matter, Dolores?"

Umbridge puffed up arrogantly. "Potter here, Headmaster, thought it would be funny to rebel against my authority and refuse to attend the detention I set for him. Calls it a 'miscarriage of justice', and says he's 'passively resisting' or some such nonsense. I thought you could talk some sense into the boy."

Whatever punishment she was hoping for, however, she wasn't going to get it.

"Now, Dolores, that's a bit harsh, don't you think? Mister Potter has every right to refuse to attend your detentions – the right to justice is, after all, one of England's most important rights."

_Score_! Harry thought victoriously.

"However. Mister Potter should have sought out a higher authority if he felt mistreated, not taken it upon himself to see justice carried out. What did you give him detention for, Dolores?"

Umbridge bristled. By now she was regretting seeking out Dumbledore – he'd just announced there were authorities higher than her, and she was probably loathing the thought.

"Oh, this and that, headmaster," she replied in her girlish voice, giggling slightly. "He just wasn't behaving appropriately for my class." Harry stared at her triumphantly; she wasn't telling Dumbledore the real reason for the detention because she knew it wasn't valid!

Harry was about to speak out this fact, but something made him stop. Perhaps it was Hermione's words – they had to tread carefully around Dolores Umbridge. Or perhaps it was the way Dumbledore absolutely refused to look him in the eye. Either way, Harry decided that once again it would be counter-productive to contradict Umbridge.

Sighing, Harry listened as Umbridge explained a completely fabricated version of why Harry had received detention. He wasn't even paying attention any more by the time Dumbledore gave Umbridge the right to decide how to punish him for skipping his detention, rather than talking to his head of house. He only rejoined the living world after Umbridge had prodded him out of the office and shut the door behind her.

"Well, Potter, it seems the Headmaster and I are in agreement. I think I will give you a week's detention for your insolence, and be thankful it isn't more." Harry clamped his teeth together to prevent from protesting. "And I'm warning you, Potter. If I hear any more lies from your mouth, you will be in detention for the rest of your life. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal."

"So?" Ron demanded as soon as Harry got back to the common room. "How'd it go? What happened?"

"I've got a week's detention." Harry said absently, plunking down beside Ron. "Dumbledore said I have every right to rebel, but I should have consulted a higher authority rather than disobeying Umbridge."

"That sucks," Ron said sympathetically. "You alright, then?"

Harry thought about it. He'd have thought he'd be furious about this turn of events, but when he actually considered the matter, Harry found he was fine about the whole thing. Granted, he was extremely pissed off at Umbridge, but he'd had his revenge, and was feeling rather good overall. "I'm fine."

"A bit of rebellion against authority can do you a world of good," Ginny Weasley stated as she swept by towards the girls' dormitories.

_So it would seem_, Harry thought in amusement. He'd have to recommend that to Hermione next time she started stressing out over something.

"Well," Harry announced, pushing himself upright and dusting off his robes. "I'm headed to bed, Ron. You coming?"

Ron flushed slightly. "Er… I was thinking of waiting up for Hermione, actually."

Harry hid a grin. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow then, mate. G'night."

"Night."


	20. Cruelty Leaves a Mark

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Twenty – Cruelty Leaves a Mark

The next day passed in a blur of classes, leaving Harry fairly dreading the upcoming OWL exams. Every single teacher spent their entire lesson time prattling on about the importance of OWLS, and the consequences of failure. Needless to say, Harry was exhausted by the end of the day, not even taking into account Umbridge's impending detention.

"Don't worry about it," Ron offered Harry as the ebony-haired boy bolted down his dinner so as to make his detention on time. "What's the worst she'll make you do? Write lines?" The redhead laughed at the thought, digging into his meal, ignoring Hermione's disgusted look.

"Seriously, Harry," Hermione said soothingly. "It can't be too bad. Next time, just try a different method of rebellion, that's all."

Harry gave her a grateful smile. He'd needed that reassurance, as much as he hated to admit it. What would he do without his friends?

Two minutes to 5:00 found Harry slouched against the wall outside Professor Umbridge's office, sullenly counting the stones on the opposite wall. At precisely five o'clock, the door opened to reveal Umbridge in another of her hideously pink outfits, a pleased smile on her face – probably smug that he'd turned up for detention rather than snubbing her again.

"Come in, Potter," the woman sang, wide mouth smirking. Oh, what Harry would give to forget he was in school, so that he could hex the woman's smile off her face. _Violent thoughts are not good_, Harry reminded himself quickly. _Just go along with the psycho so you can get out of here soon_.

She ushered him over to a desk facing towards the office's only window, which afforded Harry a fairly good view of the Quidditch Pitch, although no one was using it presently. As he sat down at the table, he discovered that on it was a roll of parchment and a strange, rather unpleasant looking black quill, with no inkpot in sight. It seemed he was to write lines.

"What will I be writing, then?" he asked as politely as he could. He had so many more important things to do with his time than write stupid lines for a power-crazed psycho. The toad-like woman gestured towards the quill, and Harry dutifully picked it up, setting its tip lightly onto the parchment.

"You will be writing lines for me, Mister Potter."

"What will the lines be?"

She smirked in a rather annoying manner. "I must not tell lies."

Harry arched an eyebrow. "How many times?"

Umbridge's smile only grew wider. "Oh, as many as it takes for the message to _sink_ in, you might say."

Harry stared at her. The woman was off her rocker. "Right then… till it sinks in…" He realized he didn't have any ink to write with, but Umbridge obviously didn't mind, so, shrugging, he put the dry quill to the parchment and scratched out the words "I must not tell lies." As he wrote, to his astonishment, ink came out of the quill, blood-red ink, even though the quill was dry. At the same time, a searing pain spread across the back of his hand.

"What the…" Harry gaped as he saw the words he'd written with the quill appear on the back of his hand, cutting deep into his hand. The skin healed over not two seconds later, but it didn't take that long for Harry to figure out that the ink he was writing with was his own blood. He stared at the quill incredulously. Was this thing even legal? But Umbridge was watching him for any signs of weakness, and Harry found that he couldn't back down from her challenge, no matter how hard he tried. Resolutely, he turned back to the parchment and began grinding out the words, ignoring the searing pain in his hand.

.:This is stupid:. Decimare berated him mentally. .:What are you thinking? Take the quill as evidence, and walk out the door right now! Go see Headmaster Dumbledore! He certainly wouldn't let this travesty continue:.

'This is a private battle between Umbridge and I, Decimare,' Harry replied as he slowly wrote out his lines. 'If I back down now, she'll have won.'

.:What does it matter:. the snake hissed. .:This is a school, not some war between you two:.

'If I don't show her that I won't give in, she'll only push me harder and harder, walking all over me. Wars come in all shapes and sizes, Decimare, and this _is_ a war. How could I live with myself if I let evil prevail, or went to someone else for help? I can do this on my own.' If Harry was surprised by the conviction in his thoughts, it seemed Decimare was even more shocked.

.:You are finally learning:. the snake hissed proudly, surprising Harry completely. He had been expecting a rebuke, not encouragement. .:It _is_ a war, and you are absolutely correct to stand up for what you believe in. You are finally starting to grow wise to the ways of the world, my Master. Sometimes the only way to win a battle is to fight, even if that means not going for help. Why, in a sword fight, how can you ever win if you always call for aid? It is usually a good idea, yes, but it is standing up for what you believe in helps make you into the man you will someday become:.

Harry winced. 'Thanks for the support, Decimare, but could you cut the lecture short? Sorry, but I've _really_ got to focus on these lines…'

The snake snorted. .:Oh, is the pain bothering you, you poor, helpless child:.

Harry rolled his eyes. 'You aren't the one willingly cutting open his hand over and over for no conceivable reason.'

Decimare hissed in the way Harry suspected was its form of laughter. .:Remember when you accidentally fumbled that reverse block, and nearly sliced your leg off:.

Harry shuddered at the memory. He'd been up half the night finding a healing spell to heal the deep gash so that Sirius and James wouldn't suspect his illegal nighttime sword training. It had _hurt_. It even hurt just thinking about it. In fact, compared to that, along with a multitude of other 'accidents' with Decimare, the blood quill really didn't hurt that much.

Decimare hissed happily that he'd gotten his point across so well. Harry sighed and continued with his endless work, studiously ignoring the looks Umbridge constantly shot him. _You are my enemy_, Harry thought savagely, _and this is a war. A war that I will win. No matter what._

Harry trudged out of Umbridge's office several hours later cradling his bruised, aching hand, which still hurt even though Harry had experienced far worse. And to think he still had three more nights of this torture to endure!

Halfway to Gryffindor tower, Harry felt something shifting in his pocket, and, turning it out, discovered the Marauder's Map. Oh yes, he'd put it in there in case he needed it. Harry quickly glanced around the deserted hallways, before drawing the map open and activating it. Even though it was only five minutes to lights out, there still might be some students walking through the corridors, and Harry couldn't risk them seeing the map.

He carefully scanned the map, and noted no one at all between himself and the second floor girl's lavatory. Harry had been planning on waiting a while before venturing down into the Chamber of Secrets to clean it out and map it, but seeing as there was no one around at the moment… like James always said, if you get the perfect opportunity, take it! So Harry did.

He made it down to the lavatory with little effort, and had closed and locked the door by the time 9 o'clock rolled around. Good thing, too, or else he would probably have run into a Prefect. Harry didn't particularly fancy explaining to Dumbledore why he was lurking around the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets after lights out, especially with his hand still raw and red from Umbridge's detention.

Once inside the lavatory, it didn't take long for Harry to whisper the password to open the Chamber, causing the sink with the snake engraving to sink into the floor, leaving a gaping black hole in its place. Shuddering as bad memories flashed through his mind, Harry told Decimare to return to his sword form, just in case he needed a little protection from whatever was lurking down there. Sure, the basilisk was dead, but he didn't trust Slytherin not to leave some other little nasty, waiting to attack the next unfortunate soul to enter his secret lair.

Harry placed a foot on the rim of the hole, wincing when he nearly slipped from the slime the hole's walls were practically coated with. It seemed the spell Ginny had used on the train to rid he and his companions of Stinksap after Neville's plant exploded would come in handy after all.

"_Scourgify_!" Harry said quietly, putting as much power as he could into the spell, and watched, satisfied, as the slime magically disappeared, leaving a larger and cleaner tunnel in its place. Smiling, Harry braced himself and jumped in before he changed his mind. He probably would have jumped anyway, as Decimare was completely for Harry's idea, and Harry was really starting to trust the snake spirit's opinion, although they still disagreed on the whole 'dark magic' thing. Plus, there was the whole Decimare-being-evil issue, which Harry really didn't feel like going into at the moment.

Sliding for what seemed like miles, Harry finally zoomed out of the end of the tunnel into the same room he'd been in over two years ago. _It hasn't changed a bit_, Harry marveled as he whipped out his wand and cast the cleaning spell repeatedly till the majority of the slime had receded into the darkness. The floor was still covered in various rodent skeletons, but Harry figured he'd save them for another day.

Following the largest tunnel, as he had before, Harry passed through various tunnels, the rock-slide room featuring the huge basilisk skin, and about five minutes later arrived at the gate, beyond which lay the Chamber of Secrets.

Harry hissed out the password, and the snakes on the huge metal vault door receded as a single snake, emerald eyes glittering, began to wind around the rim of the door. It didn't go all the way around, however, and stopped halfway around its circuit, fixing Harry with a piercing glare.

Harry gaped at it incredulously. Why was it that _every_ snake carving or sculpture he met recently turned out to be somehow alive?

'Could you let me through, please?' Harry offered hesitantly to the stone snake, who merely regarded him coolly, not saying a word either way. 'Move!' he said impatiently, but the carving ignored him. _Stupid snakes and their aloofness_, Harry thought furiously.

.:I heard that:. Decimare hissed reprovingly. .:Quit your whining, master. I'll take care of this:.

The black snake uncoiled partially from the hilt of Harry's sword and fixed the carving with a piercing glare. .:My Master, Harry James Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, has defeated both your Basilisk and your Master. He is now the rightful Master of this Chamber and all its denizens. If you wish to continue your service to the Snake Lord, then acknowledge your new Lord, and allow him access to his Chamber:.

To Harry's surprise, the snake bowed it's head to Harry, and continued it's circuit around the edge of the vault door, the door swinging open as soon as the carving disappeared from view. Harry, more than a little confused, nevertheless stepped through the portal and into the Chamber of Secrets, which hadn't changed at all since the last time he'd been down here.

He was standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit hall, with towering, serpentine stone pillars stretching up and up into the darkness. Aside from the odd, greenish gloom that had intensified since Harry's absence, he only noticed one other change to the legendary hall: the smell.

An intense, overwhelming, rotting stench hit Harry like a freight train, nearly knocking him over. At his side, Decimare hissed in disgust, .:What _is_ that smell:.

Harry winced as he approached the object giving the room such a lovely fragrance. 'That would be the rotting basilisk I killed two years ago.'

The poisonous green snake's corpse, although partially rotted, still took up a good portion of the dais upon which the gigantic statue of Salazar Slytherin sat, fangs as glistening sharp as the day they'd pierced Harry's arm. Harry shuddered.

Decimare was astonished. .:I know you told me you'd defeated a basilisk, master, but seeing its corpse is something else…:.

Harry grinned. 'Nice to know I'm appreciated.'

.:Ha ha:. the snake snapped irritably. .:Not that the smell isn't wonderfully pleasant, master, but kindly vanish the corpse before I pass out:.

Harry snickered. 'You're a snake, and made of metal to boot. You _can't_ faint. Besides, I don't know how to vanish things like this, seeing as I couldn't even vanish my mouse in Transfiguration yesterday.'

Decimare stared at him incredulously. .:You are in your _fifth_ year and you can't vanish a dead snake? That's… not too surprising, actually, considering the complete lack of worth ethic you possess…:.

Harry sighed. 'Then why don't you _teach_ me, so I can get rid of this disgusting corpse?'

To Harry's amusement, it seemed Decimare hadn't even considered the possibility of teaching him. .:Well, I suppose I could… it's not like we'll get much done with this monstrosity filling half the dais… and it probably relates to your training in one way or another…:.

'Well, it's as good a place as any to start,' Harry reasoned.

The snake seemed pleased. .:I suppose so. Well, as you know, the wand movement is a sort of swish, and the incantation is Evanesco, but it's slightly easier with inanimate objects than animate…:.

It took Harry nearly five hours, but by the end of it he'd learned quite a bit about Transfiguration that he'd never known before, as well as vanished the basilisk. As Decimare reminded him, inanimate vanishing was easier than animate vanishing, but the snake was still extraordinarily pleased with the night's work, which was very high praise indeed.

After locating the broom Ginny had used to enter and exit the Chamber while possessed by Tom Riddle, Harry sealed the Chamber, flew back up to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, sealed _that_ entrance, and finally made it back to his dormitory at around three in the morning, leaving said broom in an empty stall of the lavatory. Completely exhausted, Harry sank into his bed with a sigh of relief, and nearly kissed Decimare when the snake grudgingly agreed to cancel practice the following morning to allow Harry a bit of a lie-in. It didn't take a minute before Harry's eyes closed, and he slipped into the realm of dreams.

The next day was completely miserable. Angelina Johnson, the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, had cornered him the day before about team tryouts on Friday, which he'd agreed to attend, and so when she'd discovered his weeklong detention, she'd nearly bit his head off. Add that to the fact that Harry had completely forgotten his Dream Diary for Divination, meaning he had to skip breakfast to do it, and it was understandable why he was in such a foul mood by the end of breakfast. He wasn't the only one to forget his homework, however.

"Why didn't you do your diary?" Hermione demanded of Ron, who ignored her as he frantically scribbled away. "I mean, Harry had detention, but what were you doing last night?"

"Oh, nothing," Ron said shiftily, and Harry guessed he wasn't the only one keeping a secret schedule.

"There," Ron said as he slammed his diary shut. "I wrote I dreamed about buying a new pair of shoes. She can't make anything strange out of that, can she?"

Harry groaned. "Knowing her… remember last lesson? I 'dreamed' I walked down a street, and Trelawney said I was suicidal, and should stay away from oak trees and sleeping porcupines. What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"You've got me," Ron said miserably as the boys parted from Hermione and made their way to the North tower. Divination lasted seemingly forever, and Harry was convinced time had frozen by the time the bell finally rang.

Transfiguration, surprisingly, went much better than Harry had expected, due in large part to Decimare's coaching the previous night. Compared to vanishing a basilisk, a mouse was a cinch, and he impressed even McGonagall with his prowess. But that bright point couldn't lighten his miserable day, which was only accentuated by another fun-filled detention with Dolores Umbridge, which went just as painfully as the night before.

_The woman is insane_, Harry thought bitterly as he swept out of her office, surreptitiously cradling his red, burning hand. Along the way to Gryffindor tower, he ran into Ron, who also looked miserable, along with being soaking wet. Harry knew it was raining outside, but before he could ask why Ron was outside, the red-head had spun a plausible story about Peeves pouring water over his head as a prank that Harry couldn't dispute without sounding too suspicious.

Upon entering the Common room, the first thing the duo noticed were Fred and George, over in the corner of the room, handing out candies to a group of first years who looked as bemused as Harry felt about Potions class. The first years swallowed the candies, and immediately fainted dead away to the floor. Fred and George were delighted, and carefully made notes on a pink clipboard they'd stolen from Lavender Brown that morning. Meanwhile, Lee Jordan began distributing the antidote to what the twins called "Fainting Fancies", a part of their Skiving Snack boxes.

Harry was shoved aside as a furious Hermione brushed by him, glaring angrily at the twins, who seemed quite smug. "I can't _believe_ you two!" she screeched.

"What?" Fred protested. "Oh, the first years? They're _fine_, Hermione, look, they're coming around now."

And indeed they were. As the gaggle of children re-awoke to the applause of various onlookers, looking around in confusion, Harry quickly deduced that Fred and George hadn't told them exactly what the candy would do to them.

"…giving those horrid things to innocent little children!" Hermione ranted.

"We're paying them!" George defended. "Besides, what are you going to do about it? Put us in detention?" The twins cowered in mock fear at Hermione, who bristled.

"No, but I _will_ tell your mother."

The twins gaped at her in horror. It was clear her threat was way below the belt. "You wouldn't," George gasped, taking a step back from the brunette.

"Oh yes I would," Hermione snapped. "I can't stop you eating the foul things yourselves, but giving them to innocent, unsuspecting first years is where I draw the line." That said, she whirled around and marched back to where Ron and Harry were standing, ignoring the flabbergasted looks on their faces. "Thanks for your help, my dear fellow Prefect," Hermione snapped at Ron, who was obviously lost.

"Er… you're welcome?"

Harry sighed as Hermione threw her hands up in frustration and stalked away up the stairs, robes billowing behind her in a way Harry wished he could achieve. The overall effect was quite spectacular.

"Ron…" Harry said sadly.

"What did I do?" Ron asked in bewilderment. "It's not _my_ fault she decides to thank me for nothing out of the blue! What was I supposed to do?"

"She was being sarcastic, lil' bro'," Fred said matter of factly as he polled the first years on their reactions to the Fainting Fancies. Realization dawned on Ron's face.

"Ooh…"

Harry, pitying his friend's naivety, sighed sympathetically, before reluctantly pulling out his bag and getting a start on the mountain of homework he'd accumulated over the last three days.

The work took him till almost five in the morning to complete, so by Thursday Harry was running on about two hours of sleep.

.:Why the long face:. Decimare inquired after Harry's Thursday detention. .:After all, only one more detention to go:.

'Yay,' Harry replied glumly, looking down at his scarred hand, the words "I must not tell lies," engraved permanently in his flesh.

.:Although I advised against it initially, Master, perhaps you _should_ go to your guardians about Madam Umbridge's detentions. I am certain blood quills are illegal at Hogwarts:. Decimare opined.

'I can't,' Harry said. 'They'll wonder why I waited this long to tell them, and then Dad will go on a massive guilt trip and think I don't trust him, while Sirius hexes Umbridge into oblivion, thus getting him thrown back into Azkaban.'

.:As much as I dislike seeing my master suffer… well, when it's not his own fault, admittedly…:.

"Nice to know you care," Harry said cheekily, feeling better when teasing the snake.

.:Hush! I suppose you have a point:. Decimare conceded, before hissing quickly, .:Quiet, Master! Someone approaches:.

That someone turned out to be Ron, wearing soaking wet robes and carrying the new broom Mrs. Weasley had bought him when he'd made Prefect. From all this, Harry quickly deduced the boy had been out practicing Quidditch, most likely for tomorrow's tryouts.

"H- Harry!" Ron stuttered. "What are you doing here?"

Harry arched an eyebrow. "I was in detention, remember? What I want to know is why _you_ are here."

Ron flushed. "Oh, you know, I fancied a walk…"

"With your broomstick?"

"That's right."

"In the rain?"

"Oh, alright, if you must know, I've been practicing every night for the Quidditch tryouts. I want to make Keeper. Pretty stupid, eh?"

"I think it's brilliant." Harry reassured the redhead firmly. "You'll do fine, no question about that. Besides, it's about time the team got some new blood."

"Yeah…" Ron said, his face returning to its normal color. He made to continue on his way, but spotted Harry's scarred hand. Hurriedly Harry tried to hide the hand, but Ron was too quick for him, seizing his hand and lighting his wand to see the thin scars better.

"I… must… not… tell… lies… you told me you were writing lines!" Ron accused.

"Well, I _was_, technically…"

"Blood quills are illegal! Why didn't you tell me? The woman is completely insane! You should go to Dumbledore!" Ron ranted.

Dumbledore! Harry hadn't even considered seeking the headmaster's aid, probably because the man had been ignoring him for the past two months. No, if Dumbledore felt like avoiding Harry and didn't want to tell him why, Harry certainly wasn't going to confide in him. Trust, after all, is a two-way street. Metaphorically speaking.

.:Not always:. Decimare put in. .:Sometimes blind trust is needed:.

'Did I ask your opinion? I'm kind of trying to concentrate here,' Harry complained. 'And can you _stop _prying into my thoughts?" Decimare, predictably, didn't respond.

Harry turned back to Ron. "I don't see what he could do about it, is all. Besides, it's not all _that_ terrible. I can handle it. I doubt he wants to be bothered with this."

Ron still looked skeptical.

"Come on, let's go back to the common room. We both need sleep."

As they headed back to the common room, they nearly fell over in shock when they saw Sirius dangling from the ceiling a few feet ahead of them.

"Sirius?" Harry asked in confusion as they pulled the man down to the ground, banishing the levitation charm that he'd apparently cast on himself. "You alright?"

Sirius pulled himself upright, smiling as if there were nothing strange about his behavior. "Of course, Harry, why would you ask a silly question like that? Oh, Ron, would you mind handing me that large and frankly suspicious looking black box, coincidentally the same size as a coffin? Thanks."

"What's going on?" Harry demanded suspiciously.

Sirius smiled innocently. "Nothing at all. Don't know what you're getting so paranoid about, Prongslet. Speaking of which, I've got to dash. See you!"

"WAIT!" Harry hollered after Sirius's retreating form. "Urgh. Bloody adults and their secrets. What was he doing hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the night, anyway? And what was up with the coffin-sized… what was it? 'frankly suspicious looking black box'?"

"Don't worry about it," Ron said bracingly. "Come on, let's go to bed."

Harry sighed and followed the red-headed boy into the common room.

"If Sirius gets himself killed doing some fool prank, I'm going to kill him myself," Harry muttered.

Ron just laughed.


	21. Of Quaffles and Secret Chambers

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Twenty One – Of Quaffles and Secret Chambers

Friday morning dawned brightly as always, arriving with it another predictably terrible day. At breakfast, Angelina spent a good five minutes yelling at Harry for getting detention and thus being forced to blow off the Quidditch tryouts, until Professor McGonagoll showed up and in turn yelled at Angelina for yelling at Harry. All in all, a horrible start to a horrible day.

"Don't worry about it, Harry," Fred advised as he and George passed him on their way to Potions. "Things'll get better."

"They always do!" George chirped, and the redheads sped away before Harry could question them.

"How do they know things will improve?" Hermione asked no one in particular as they made their way to Charms. "Or are they just guessing?"

Harry snorted, but Ron actually considered her words. "Well… you remember at the Quidditch World Cup? Fred and George bet their _life_ savings on Ireland winning, but Krum getting the snitch. I mean, how likely was _that_ to happen? But it did, didn't it?"

Hermione laughed. "What, are you saying they're Seers or something?"

"Who knows?" Ron replied mysteriously. Harry laughed at his tone of voice.

"Remember that Trelawney is also a Seer. Do you really want to group your own flesh and blood with a nutcase like her?" said Harry. Ron paused, as if considering the matter, before laughing and taking back his previous statement.

"Even I wouldn't be that cruel. No one deserves to be likened to Trelawney."

"Yeah," Harry said darkly. "Or worse, Umbridge."

The previous night, Ron had informed Hermione of Umbridge's detentions with the blood quill, and she'd been outraged, to say the least. She, like Ron, had immediately advised going to either Dumbledore or Sirius and James, but Harry had persuaded her to let him make his own decisions. He could take care of himself, after all.

"Don't worry about it, Harry," Hermione said sympathetically. "Only one more detention and you're done with her. Although you won't be if you make any more controversial comments in class."

"I get the idea," Harry groaned, entering the Charms class and taking a seat at the back. "You only remind me of the fact every single day. Come on, Flitwick is starting the lesson."

The lesson focused around multiplying objects, or creating duplicates of them. Of course, it was extremely difficult to duplicate or multiply anything complex, but by the end of the class most everyone had duplicated their rock nearly perfectly.

"This spell is usually used to duplicate written documents, as it isn't very useful for much else. I, for example, use this when creating your tests. It would be very time-consuming to write out every single exam paper, but with the Duplicato spell, it is possible to simply take the original and multiply it."

"What a useless spell," Ron opined as they strolled out of the class five minutes later.

"Not necessarily," Hermione said thoughtfully. "In fact, I imagine it's quite useful in many professions."

"Yeah," Harry said with a grin, "like during examinations. You could steal the answer key, duplicate it, and hand it in as your completed exam."

"I'm sure someone would realize what you'd done, Harry," Hermione said acidly, not approving of even the notion of cheating.

"Lighten up, Hermione," Ron said. "He was just joking."

"Hmph."

"It's the Gryffindor team tryouts tonight, if I'm not mistaken? Poor dear, and you probably wanted to attend them, too. Maybe next time you'll think before mouthing off in my class, Potter."

Harry did his best to tune out the aggravating voice of Dolores Umbridge. It was his final detention with the witch, and he certainly didn't want to antagonize her into giving him more. He turned back to his parchment, and continued scribbling out "I must not tell lies." His hand was now permanently scarred, and according to Decimare, he would bear the scars for years to come. Harry was absolutely livid at this, but he knew if he complained it would only give Umbridge satisfaction, knowing she'd gotten under his skin. Infuriating woman!

He found, however, that as long as he pretended he was working, he could in fact see a distant view of the Quidditch Pitch from the window in front of his desk. Unfortunately, he couldn't distinguish who was flying, and the growing dark made it even harder to see the pitch, so Harry eventually gave it up as a bad job. He did wish Ron the best of luck, however, and hoped he wasn't the first flyer Harry had seen. The figure had crashed into the ground two minutes into the tryout, after all.

Three hours later Harry was released from Umbridge's clutches for what would hopefully be the last time. Realizing he hadn't seen James and Sirius in ages – okay, a week, but still! – Harry headed up to the fourth floor, gave the password to a portrait of a witch eating a bloatwurst, and stepped inside Sirius and James's quarters.

The sitting room connecting their bedrooms was lit by a roaring fire, and James and Sirius lay sprawled over the two overstuffed couches, discussing something that Harry didn't pick up on.

"Hi!" he greeted enthusiastically, and was rather confused when the duo nearly fell off their couches in shock. "Er… sorry 'bout that…"

"Harry!" James exclaimed, giving his son a huge hug. "I haven't seen you in, like, forever! Why didn't you visit?" he demanded, eyes wide. Harry snorted.

"You have my class schedule, _father_, you could have visited me! You're the responsible adult!"

Sirius gave a bark-like laugh. "So what've you been up to?"

Harry's eyes narrowed. "More importantly, what have _you_ been up to? What was up with last night?"

James's eyes widened comically, and he rounded on Sirius with a suspicious glare. "Yes, Padfoot, what _was_ up with last night?"

Sirius winced. "Ahh… I don't know what you're talking about…"

"I was walking back to the common room when I find Sirius hanging from the ceiling, toting around this huge black box!"

"You did, did you?" James asked, eyeing Sirius, who was backing away slowly in case he should suddenly need to make a quick exit. James frowned. "I, personally, Harry, have _no_ idea what Sirius was doing last night. Maybe he can tell us?"

Sirius attempted a winning smile. "I was just going for a little stroll, that's all! So, Harry," he said quickly, trying to change the subject. "How was detention?" His attempt was successful, because Harry immediately began ranting out his frustration and anger towards Umbridge, although not mentioning the blood quill.

"…and then she taunts me about missing Quidditch tryouts! Can you _believe_ that? Stupid old hag…"

Sirius and James exchanged a glance. Sirius turned to Harry. "It seems to me, young Harry, that it is time to step up the passive resistance we discussed on Tuesday."

"What do you mean?"

"It's like this, Harry," James explained. "Dumbledore, whether he likes it or not, has to support Umbridge, because she is his employee. Any rules you break with her, he will have to approve of the punishments she gives you. If he doesn't, the Ministry will bear down on him and try to take over Hogwarts even more than they're doing now."

"So it's hopeless? We should just roll over and let Umbridge walk all over us?" Harry asked desperately.

"Of course not!" Sirius exclaimed. "You'll just have to work out another way to resist her, some way that she won't know about, but will definitely work to undermine her authority."

"An undercover organization, for example," James suggested, "like when we formed the Marauders back in our day. The things we did certainly weren't legal, running around with werewolves and all… speaking of which…"

Harry picked up on his father's train of thought. "Yes, I have been practicing my animagus transformation, and it's coming along pretty well in my opinion."

"Well, let's see!" Sirius urged, and the next half-hour was spent improving Harry's technique. By the end of it he still hadn't achieved full form, but he could shrink to the correct size for a falcon, had the feathers down pat, and the talons were coming.

"Well done!" James encouraged as they said goodnight. "You're progressing quite fast! Where are you practicing, anyway?"

"Er…" What was he supposed to say? I've been practicing by the lakeside in full view of everyone! Or was he supposed to say that he was cleaning out the dreaded Chamber of Secrets so he could practice there? He doubted either answer would impress them. In fact, if he told them of the Chamber, they'd probably peg him as the next Dark Lord and lock him up so he wouldn't kill anyone.

"Where you practiced _your_ transformation!" That was a pretty safe answer.

"No kidding? You know, the Shrieking Shack is a great place, Harry, but make sure you don't go there too often – you never know what could be lurking there," said Sirius.

"Sure thing," Harry agreed readily, as he hadn't gone anywhere near the Shrieking Shack, and wasn't intending to any time in the near future. "And don't think you've fooled me, Sirius. I know you're up to something with that black box of yours, whether you admit it or not."

"Speaking of banana splits, Harry, you should probably go back to the common room before someone catches you here. You really aren't supposed to be in here, to tell you the truth."

Harry gaped at his father. "We _weren't_ talking about banana splits, Dad!"

James looked confused. "Who said anything about banana splits?"

"I like bananas," Sirius added helpfully.

Harry sighed. "Whatever. Keep your secrets. I'll see you soon, then." Turning, he trudged out of the room, frankly starting to wonder about his father's mental state. Honestly, the man was completely batty sometimes.

Back in the sitting room, James rounded on Sirius furiously. "I thought we specifically agreed _not_ to start construction earlier than 2 in the morning! Any random student could be wandering around at 10:00 p.m.! What were you _thinking_?"

Sirius glowered. "I was just scoping out the area, Prongs, I didn't intend to mess up the levitation and adherence spells."

James snickered, exasperation momentarily forgotten. "What I would have given to see you hanging upside down from the ceiling. Wait, back on topic! We have to be discreet, Padfoot! No one can know what we're doing, not even Dumbledore! You did at least stun the portraits before you started?"

Sirius appeared insulted. "Do you think me stupid? Wait, don't answer that. Of course I did! Dumbledore won't be spying on us out of any portraits while I'm in charge! The plan will go perfectly, Prongs, don't worry. I've already got a few set up; we can test them tomorrow."

James sighed. "Well, at least Harry doesn't seem to suspect anything. He probably just thinks we're preparing for a prank or something. Same with Ron, hopefully. Remember, _no one can know_!"

"_I know_! Hey, you don't see me criticizing _your_ work, Prongs! How's the forest progressing, anyway?"

James smiled mysteriously. "I've made contact, and things are going just fine. I'll tell you when we reach an agreement. Until then, we focus on the castle."

Sirius gave a fake salute. "Affirmative. Operation Sentinel will be a success!"

Hogwarts was quieter than Harry had ever seen before. The halls, usually teeming with exuberant students making their way to classes, were silent as a tomb, even their shadows lending a neglected feeling to the air. Harry shivered as he descended a long stone staircase leading to a concealed corridor on the second floor. He was beginning to regret his plan to clean out the Chamber this evening – the castle almost seemed to be discouraging it.

.:It is very quiet tonight:. Decimare reflected, his hiss echoing off the empty walls. .:I don't know why, as it shouldn't be unusual for this time of night, but I don't like it:.

"You can say that again," Harry muttered, peering suspiciously around the corner before turning it. He felt as if he were being followed… or watched… but that was a silly notion. _I'm just being paranoid_, he told himself, wincing as he jumped when a door slammed some floors above him. _Ah, who am I kidding? I'm freaked out, no doubt about it. The sooner I get into the Chamber, the better._

"Okay, what was _that_ all about?" Harry demanded as he scrambled down the rusty ladder into the Chamber of Secrets. "Why did the vault door call me the Snake Lord?"

.:You slaughtered the guardian of this Chamber, and you are therefore now its master, and you will continue being this until another takes control of it:.

Harry stared incredulously at the snake. "And you were planning on telling me this when?"

The snake apparently deigned him unworthy of a response, for he ignored his master completely and instead transformed into his sword form. He surveyed the chamber with apparent distaste. .:You've got a _lot_ of work to do if you wish to make this place hospitable, Master:.

Harry surveyed the Chamber. Although the basilisk's corpse was gone, him having vanished it on his previous trip, it's stench still poisoned the air, making it difficult to breath without choking. The vast stone floor had clearly seen better days, as had the endless serpentine columns reaching up into the blackness. And the rusty ladder at the entrance would definitely have to be replaced.

"The first issue to tackle is probably the foul smell," Harry decided, wrinkling his nose. "And a thorough cleaning wouldn't go amiss either. I don't suppose I could invite Aunt Petunia down here for a weekend to fix the place up?"

.:Aunt Petunia?:.

Harry sighed. "Never mind, just a cleanliness-obsessed relative of mine. Now, Ginny – yes, the redhead – used the Scourgify spell on the Hogwarts Express to clean up the compartment, so I'm assuming I can use the same spell here, right?"

.:That's correct, but it will take you a long amount of time and energy to clean this _entire_ chamber:.

Harry sighed. "Well, do you have a better method?"

Decimare grinned slyly. .:Naturally. Unfortunately for you, it is a mild form of Dark Arts, as it can be used to take out even the worst of bloodstains, so I guess it can't help you…:.

Harry knew what Decimare was doing. He was trying to convince Harry that the Dark Arts weren't evil, they just depended on the intentions of the caster. The debate of good/evil vs. intentions had been raging in Harry's mind all week, and it seemed it was time for Harry to make a decision, a decision that would probably affect the way he viewed magic for the rest of his life.

"I… I don't like the idea of using the Dark Arts, Decimare, but… what you say makes sense. Spells aren't good or evil, it is only their masters whom are good or evil. Magic is only a tool, it is the wielder who decides what to do with the tools he has."

Decimare beamed proudly at the boy. .:I couldn't have said it better myself, master:.

"Thanks," Harry replied with a grin. "Well, what are you waiting for? Teach me everything you know, oh exalted one!"

The _Abstergeo Cruor_ spell, while effortless to master, required a great amount of focus from the caster for it to work effectively. It only cleaned one specific object at a time, and while that specific object could be the entire floor of the Chamber, Harry had to focus unconditionally on the floor being completely spotless for it to have any effect. Thanks to Decimare's little meditation exercises over the summer, however, Harry soon became proficient with the focus needed to cast the spell, and therefore had the main body of the Chamber cleaned by 2 am.

"Aunt Petunia would love this spell," Harry remarked mindlessly as he cleaned the last column at the far side of the chamber. Finished, Harry retreated to the base of Slytherin's statue to survey his work. To his delight, the Chamber looked newly built, aside from the ceiling, which Harry couldn't clean, as the darkness prevented him from seeing it.

.:We can fix that:. Decimare said. .:It's quite simple. You recall the _Duplicato_ spell you learned in Charms class?:.

"Er… sure, but what use is it?"

Decimare rolled his miniscule eyes in irritation. .:What is currently lighting this Chamber?:.

"Er… those strange, glowing green balls with some sort of everlasting flame in them, I'd say:.

.:So you have glowing green balls, and a _Duplicato_ spell at your disposal. Master, surely you aren't this asinine!:.

_Oh._ "Well, if you're going to be so rude about it," Harry muttered, raising his wand towards the nearest ball and yelling "_Duplicato_!" Nothing happened. "Okay, let's try again. _Duplicato_!" This time the spell seemed to work, as the familiar yellow light flashed and a duplicate of the glowing ball appeared on the floor in front of Harry.

"Cool!" he marveled, amazed the spell actually had a practical use. Following Decimare's instructions, Harry created thirty balls, which he gathered in a circle around him. "Now what?"

Decimare rolled his eyes. .:Well, since you need them on the ceiling, may I suggest a combination of levitation and adhesive charms?:.

Once all the balls were attached to the edges of the ceiling, the roof of the Chamber of Secrets finally revealed itself to Harry, who simply stared, awestruck. Gazing down at him was a larger than life relief carving of a basilisk, stretching out over the entirety of the vaulted ceiling, emerald eyes the size of dinner plates gleaming at some unseen foe.

.:Master Salazar…:. Decimare hissed in reverence. .:You have truly outdone yourself with this:.

"No kidding," Harry breathed, observing how the zeniths of the serpentine columns flowed seamlessly into the design of the ceiling as if they were living extensions of a larger entity. "How did he _do_ this?"

.:I haven't the faintest idea:. Decimare responded honestly. .:However he did it, I think it's safe to say that if being an evil Dark Lord didn't work out, he could easily get a job as an architect or interior designer:.

They stared at each other, before they simultaneously broke out into laughter. Perhaps it was their awe, perhaps it was their fatigue, but they found it immensely amusing, and that was all that mattered.

'Ugh,' Harry sighed as he climbed into his dormitory bed two hours later. 'Another 4 am bedtime. This is getting to be too much of a habit for my liking, Decimare.'

.:Indeed, considering you have training in one hour:.

'No way!'

.:Of course not, master:. Decimare hissed reprovingly. .:I told you you cannot improve until you can create an artificial opponent to battle, and you haven't yet mastered that skill. So until then I will badger you until you buckle down and learn it:.

"You're all heart," Harry muttered, eyes closing.

.:I don't have a heart:. the snake informed him primly. .:I am a stone carving with no organs or tissue of any sort. In fact… never mind:.

For Harry had fallen asleep midspeech, snoring softly into his pillow. Decimare looked almost… fondly at his master, hissing softly .:Good night, Master. Sleep well:.

Then he tacked on as an afterthought: .:And if you continue being this blockheaded about magic, I shall roll you up in those sheets and dangle you over the fireplace until you grow some sense:.

"But Hermione, it's the _weekend_!" Ron protested, but the brunette didn't budge.

"We have approximately six essays due for Monday, Ronald Weasley," Hermione retorted, eyes blazing. "And unlike me, _you_ haven't even started them yet! Yet you still wish to go play Quidditch!"

"Of course I do!" Ron shouted. "I made the team, didn't I? I've got to practice if I want to keep my position! I thought you'd understand, but _no_, you're too obsessed with your stupid little books to pay _any_ attention-" He cut off midsentence as Harry stepped into the common room, green eyes cloudy from lack of sleep, yawning tiredly.

"Hey guys," he greeted, collapsing onto the couch across from the arguing pair.

Ron beamed, previous argument completely forgotten. "Guess what? I MADE IT!"

Harry blinked wearily. "…huh?"

"Ron made the Gryffindor Quidditch team as Keeper," Hermione translated. "Angelina announced it last night after tryouts. Speaking of which, I don't suppose you'll tell us where _you_ were during Ron's celebration party?"

Harry was alert enough by now to neatly sidestep the question. "Oh, you know, hanging with Dad and Sirius. I'd never considered there'd be a party; I'm so sorry! Congratulations, mate!" he exclaimed, pulling Ron into a manly hug, which Hermione laughed at.

"Say, Harry, would you mind coming to practice a bit early with me so I could, you know, get in tune with the… er…" Ron stumbled.

"Quaffle?" Harry suggested dryly. "Yeah, sure, why not? Sounds like fun… although…" he trailed off at the furious expression on Hermione's face.

"Homework!" Hermione prompted impatiently.

A look of comprehension dawned on Harry's face. "Oh yeah, homework!" Pitiful as it was, with all of the week's excitement, Harry had completely forgotten about his ever-increasing workload. Polishing off his essays was clearly the intelligent thing to do, but the day was bright and sunny, and he hadn't been flying in over a week…

"Sorry, Hermione, but I'll have to pass for now. Quidditch calls, you understand. I'll do it on Sunday, no worries!" If Hermione was impressed by his reasons, the way she stalked off, muttering angrily under her breath, certainly didn't show it.

"Geez, what's wrong with her?" Ron said.

Harry snickered. "She's just trying to get us to pass this year. That's not a crime, Ron."

"Well, it should be," he muttered darkly.

As it turned out, Ron was a fairly decent Keeper, seizing nearly every Quaffle Harry flung at him. Then again, Harry was a Seeker, not a Chaser, so his skills with the Quaffle weren't above par, yet he still reckoned that Ron had performed reasonably well. By the time the rest of the team appeared on the pitch, the duo had had a good warm up, and both boys – well, Harry, at least – were looking forward to practice.

"Everyone in the air," Angelina barked. "I want to see everyone complete 50 laps of the stadium by the time I return with the Quidditch balls. Well, what are you waiting for? Get going!"

Not waiting for the rest of the team, Harry, already mounted, kicked off and soared away into the fresh morning air, restraining himself from laughing at the sheer exhilaration of it. If he thought flying on a broom was rapturous, wait until he gained his animagus form and could fly for real! The thought made Harry's eyes light up, and he immediately resolved to practice the transformation twice as hard.

Fred and George zoomed up on either side of Harry, joining him as he continued his revolutions of the pitch. To Harry's surprise, when the rest of the team moved closer to them, Fred and George pulled ahead, nodding for Harry to join them. Immensely curious, Harry followed their lead, soon pulling far ahead from the rest of the pack.

"So, Harry," Fred began. It was difficult to hear him through the roaring wind their speed created, but it wasn't impossible, as the three were fairly close together.

"We, along with two gentlemen you are in acquaintance with," George continued.

"Messers Padfoot and Prongs, to be exact,"

"Have a proposition to make you,"

"Which you will accept, if you have any troublemaking genes within you at all."

Harry gave them a curious look, momentarily ducking to avoid Angelina as she soared past them, eyeing the trio suspiciously. "Well, what is it?"

The twins grinned, obviously pleased.

"The four of us have devised a plan to take Umbridge down a notch," Fred explained.

"Nothing big, mind you, just a little something to help her realize she doesn't rule Hogwarts," George clarified.

"Giving you detention for telling the truth!" Fred exclaimed.

"Completely unacceptable," George agreed. "Which is why we've decided to act, and we are inviting you, along with Ron and Hermione, if you like-"

"- to help get a little revenge," Fred finished.

"Revenge? Count me in!" Harry exclaimed, delighted. "What do you need my help with, then?"

Fred's eyes twinkled mysteriously. "Meet us in the Honeydukes passage at midnight tonight. At that time, all will be revealed."

"Do not disappoint us, young Harry." George told him sternly, before they simultaneously cracked a grin and zoomed off to join the rest of the team, who were gathering in the center of the pitch at Angelina's orders. Still contemplating the twins offer, Harry followed the redheads, wondering what they were up to. If they were in league with Sirius and James… Harry suddenly feared greatly for Umbridge's life, or more importantly, sanity. Then again, it was _Umbridge_. Bring on the punishment!

"Harry!" Angelina exclaimed, and Harry realized he'd zoned out during her speech. Wincing, he flew to his spot in the circle they'd formed, mentally berating himself. _Keep zoning out like this and she'll kick you off the team!_

.:Highly unlikely:. Decimare snorted. .:You're possibly the best Seeker Hogwarts has ever had:.

"That's better," Angelina approved, tossing a Quaffle from hand to hand. Her dark, braided hair glinted warmly in the sunlight. "Now, as this is our first practice, we're going to start with a little passing exercise, just to warm up." Having said this, she turned and chucked the ball at Harry, who, caught off guard, barely managed to grab it.

_Revenge for making her wait for me, I suppose_.

Harry reverse-passed the Quaffle to Alicia, who passed it to Katie, who passed it to Ron, who dropped it. As Ron retrieved the Quaffle with a red face, Harry suddenly noticed the jeers and taunts coming from the Slytherin section of the stands. Sure enough, there sat the Slytherin Quidditch team, looking highly amused at Ron's mistake. No wonder Angelina had been acting so snappish – she didn't want to make a fool of herself and her team in front of their enemies.

Ron sheepishly passed the Quaffle to Fred, and around the circle it continued until it reached Ron again, who lunged for it and just missed. Face now flaming in embarrassment, he shot a look at the Slytherins, who were yelling taunts at him with no sense of propriety.

"Just ignore them," Harry told his friend firmly. "They're just words, they don't mean anything. Save your anger for the pitch. They won't be laughing when we beat them into the ground."

Angelina nodded approvingly. "That's exactly the attitude I want, Harry. Pretend they aren't here."

It was hard, though, imagining they weren't there. Harry, having had to live with their mockery for years, fared fairly well, but Ron grew steadily redder as the practice progressed. When Malfoy called out a particularly nasty jibe about the Weasleys' father, however, things got rather out of hand.

Malfoy, who'd been leaning over the edge of the balcony as he shouted, suddenly toppled forward over the railing, as if pushed by an unseen hand. Down he plummeted, screaming shrilly, falling too quickly for anyone to have a hope of catching him. Suddenly, James appeared at the edge of the pitch, waving his wand towards Malfoy, who's descent slowed and slowed until he tumbled gently to the ground with a muffled "Oomph".

Harry was relieved that Malfoy hadn't been killed, but still rather wished the boy had broken a bone or two. He certainly deserved it. James, meanwhile, was helping a shaking Malfoy to his feet, whose face was pale and hands were shaking in terror.

"Are you alright?" he asked the terrified boy kindly, his eyes twinkling for some reason.

"I… I almost _died_…" Malfoy gasped, still shaky from the near-death experience.

"Well, perhaps you shouldn't be so rude to the Gryffindors. Then things like this may not happen," James told him with a grin.

The Gryffindor Quidditch team gaped. Was he admitting he'd pushed Malfoy off the balcony? _No, not Dad,_ Harry realized, _but Sirius is nowhere to be seen, and he doesn't have Dad's common sense. _The man's mysterious absence from James' side couldn't be coincidence.

Malfoy was appalled. "Are you threatening me?" he demanded.

"Of course not," James replied innocently.

"I'll have you thrown out of the school for this!" Malfoy bellowed.

"What would they throw me out for? I just saved the life of Snape's star pupil. They should give me a medal!"

Malfoy was turning steadily redder and redder, but clearly realized he had no evidence to support his suspicions. He finally gave a roar of frustration and marched away towards the exit, muttering furiously. James followed a few moments later, whistling a cheerful tune that had the Weasley twins grinning cheekily.

"I… I guess practice is over…" Angelina stammered.

Harry immediately grabbed his broom and raced after his father, who was almost at the exit to the stadium. "Dad! Wait!"

James turned around, triumph in every inch of his face. "Enjoy the show?"

"Enjoy the show!" Harry bellowed. "You could have killed him! I know he's a scumbag, Dad, but he could have died!"

James seemed taken aback by Harry's words. "Harry, it was just a prank! That boy has been torturing you for four years! His father is a Death Eater, and we have reliable evidence he'll become one as well! He tortures kittens and children for fun!"

"That was still way out of line! Sure, he deserves everything he gets, but what if your little prank went wrong?" Harry demanded.

"It wouldn't have," James deflected with a carefree wave of his hand. "Ever since I got here, I've been learning all about your past. That platinum blond brat has tormented you far too much, and I have every right as your father to teach him a lesson. We've been planning this for the past week, Harry, and we covered every safety precaution there was. Voldemort himself couldn't have brought harm to Malfoy with all the charms we placed."

"We?" Harry demanded, but the anger gnawing at his insidew was starting to retreat. It _was_ just intended as a prank, and Malfoy couldn't have been harmed at all, so it was all right in Harry's books. Besides, Malfoy had done tons of terrible things – he'd nearly sacked Hagrid! – perhaps maybe this experience would give him a hint to stop tormenting the Gryffindors.

"Hi!" Sirius exclaimed brightly, appearing beside James. "Er… Prongs told you it was just a joke, right? You aren't going to flip out at us?"

"No," Harry reassured him. "Just… tell me next time you try to kill him. I nearly had a heart attack."

"Will do," Sirius chirped.

The trio lapsed into a more-or-less comfortable silence.

"Incidentally," Harry spoke up suddenly. "What were Fred and George going on about? Revenge against Umbridge, or something?"

"Meet us in the passage at midnight and you'll see," James said, winking, before he and Sirius disappeared into the bleachers.

"So, did it go well?" Hermione inquired as Harry and Ron entered the common room an hour later. "You two seem extremely pleased about something."

Ron immediately burst out into laughter, probably lost in memories. Harry grinned. "Malfoy fell off the bleachers and nearly died."

"And that's amusing?" she demanded righteously, fists moving to plant themselves firmly on her hips.

"Dad saved him," Harry quickly added, deciding not to tell her it was Sirius who'd pushed Malfoy in the first place. "He's fine, just shaken up. He'll hopefully think twice before crossing the Gryffindors again."

"What?"

"He and the Slytherin team were taunting us through the whole practice. Ron nearly exploded."

The brunette sent Ron a sympathetic look. "It didn't go well, then?"

Harry glanced over at Ron, who had stopped laughing and was now recalling the horrendous practice. "It… well, it was…" Harry said, glancing uncertainly at his friend.

"Completely miserable," Ron moaned.

Hermione gave him an encouraging smile. "Well, it was only your first practice-"

"Who said it was me that made it miserable?" Ron shouted, storming off up the staircase to the dormitories. Hermione winced.

"Was he… you know, terrible?"

"No!" Harry said loyally. "Well… yes, actually, but like you said, it's only his first practice. He'll get better, or why would Angelina have picked him for the team?"

"I suppose so," Hermione said dubiously. "Well, good night Harry."

"Night," he replied, sinking back into the overstuffed armchair, when a thought suddenly struck him. "No, Hermione, wait!" The brunette turned back to him, confused. "You don't like Umbridge, right?"

She snorted, a very un-Hermione-like thing for her to do. "You could say that, yes."

"Right! Well, Fred, George, Sirius, and my Dad are planning some sort of prank on her tonight at midnight. Are you interested in coming? Ron too, of course."

She tilted her head in thought. "Well, I expect we'd be breaking quite a few rules on this little venture…"

"She made me cut open my own hand, Hermione!"

She sighed. "Oh, fine! You go get Ron, and we'll see what those four have got planned. How much would you like to bet it's something terribly dangerous?"

Harry grinned. "I wouldn't bet against that, Hermione, I'd lose. I'll see you in five minutes."

"Bring your invisibility cloak!" she called after his retreating form. Harry merely waved in response, already planning out elaborate revenges on Professor Umbridge.

_This should be fun._


	22. The High Inquisitor

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Twenty Two – The High Inquisitor

"Ow, Ron, you're stepping on my foot!"

"Well, if you weren't so clumsy in the first place-"

"Shut up, you two!" Harry whispered furiously, scanning the corridor for any signs of life. "You're going to wake the whole castle with your bickering!"

"We were _not_ bickering!" Hermione said indignantly. "We were debating the matter like any civilized person would."

"Debating?" Ron demanded. "You're just saying that 'cause you won't admit you're wrong!"

"Ooooh, you insufferable little…"

Harry tuned his friends out with a sigh as they continued their never-ending arguing, picking up his pace so as to reach his destination as soon as humanly possible. Behind him, the couple didn't seem to even register his existence, too caught up in their little spat. _Lovers quarrel_, Harry thought with a laugh, drawing out his wand as they approached the statue of the humpbacked witch.

"_Dissendium_," he whispered, drawing Ron and Hermione out of their argument for the second time that evening, as they could hardly fight while scrambling down a stone slide.

"Ahhhhh…" Hermione yawned, covering her mouth politely as Ron helped her upright, their argument forgotten as if it had never happened. It still frightened Harry how they could go from murderous to chummy in under a minute. "Remind me again why we're meeting Sirius, James, and the twins, at midnight, in a forbidden passage?"

Harry shrugged. "Beats me. I'll never figure out Sirius or my dad. They're just too… well… strange. And if Ron couldn't understand the twins after fifteen years of living with them, what chance have I got?"

"True enough," she agreed, absently brushing some dirt off Ron's shirt.

"Hey!" he protested.

"Oh honestly, Ronald, stop being such a child. You can't go out in public looking like some sewer rat…"

And off they went again with the arguing. It was enough to drive Harry mad… assuming it hadn't already. The trio marched on down the passage, only Harry really paying attention to their surroundings, which was why when he heard voices in the distance, he had the sense to stop his friends from proceeding in case the voices weren't friendly.

The trio silently shared a nod, before pressing up against the wall so as to hear the voices around the bend more clearly. The first voice Harry heard he quickly identified as James's, but on instinct he gestured to Ron and Hermione to stay put, in case they could get some secret information from James without him knowing. It wasn't their fault they were eavesdropping! If the adults would just tell them their plans, they'd hardly have to spy on them, now would they?

"…so we need them at your earliest possible convenience."

"Sure thing," a younger voice answered cheerfully.

"Just give us the specifications and we'll have them done by Halloween," an almost identical voice added, and beside them Ron whispered, "That's Fred and George."

"And remember," Sirius's deeper voice said. "No one can know what you're building, or the whole operation is blown. Don't tell a soul."

"Will do, Sergeant Black!" the twins chorused.

"Or 'won't do'," Fred added thoughtfully. "Or would that be a double negative?"

"Don't ask me, I'm terrible at grammar," James said with a laugh. "Lily used to beat me over the head every time I said something grammatically incorrect. Feisty girl, she was."

Suddenly, there was silence, and Sirius's voice called out, "You can come out now, kids, spying time's over for tonight."

Slightly ashamed, Harry, Ron, and Hermione stepped around the bend to be greeted by a frowning Sirius and James, and a grinning Fred and George.

"Good on you!" George exclaimed, thumping Ron on the back so hard the poor boy was almost knocked off his feet.

"Eavesdropping on adults!" Fred gasped. "I'd never have thought you'd have the guts, lil' bro! You do us proud!"

"Er… thanks… I think…" Ron stammered, ears flaming red at having been caught. Beside him, Hermione mumbled incoherently as she simply stared at the ground, mortified. Harry, however, thought their actions perfectly justified, and so skipped the embarrassment stage and jumped straight to the conclusion.

"What are you planning?" he demanded, successfully bringing everyone's mind back to the current situation.

"You'll never know!" Sirius cackled.

James winced.

"He's been into the candy jar again, I'm afraid. I can't tell how – I put about six different hexes on that blasted jar."

"Took me two hours to open it!" Sirius exclaimed proudly. Ron and Hermione exchanged looks, but Harry was beginning to suspect something. As long as he'd known Sirius, he'd always known the man was a joker at heart, but could get quite serious when the time came. All the past few months the man had been jumping from one insane act to another, and Harry now wondered if it was perhaps all a cover for his true actions. But what could his plans possibly be? Well, whatever they were, Sirius clearly wasn't telling, and even though James was probably in on them, he wouldn't tell either, even if it were his son doing the asking.

"Okay, as fun as trying to change subject is-" Harry began.

"Look!" Sirius shouted. "A distraction!" The twins cackled along with the Animagus this time.

"Don't even try, son," James advised. "Let me handle this. UMBRIDGE IS COMING!"

Sirius and the twins immediately froze, looking around wildly, before breaking down into laughter again. James sighed. "Sirius, a little maturity, _please_?"

"Ha ha… right… whoo!" Sirius wheezed. "Sorry 'bout that, Prongs. Okay, let's get back to the task at hand, shall we?"

"Yes please," Hermione said crisply. "Some of us want to get some sleep tonight."

"Hear hear!" Ron agreed enthusiastically, wincing as Hermione bopped him on the head for being so loud in such an enclosed space.

"Right," Sirius said, getting down to business. "Now, as we all know, Professor Umbridge is an evil psychopath and is the only witch I know deserving of being lynched. Clearly, we can't actually hang the woman, as that could be perceived as murder to the uninformed eye, even though they should give us a medal for it, those self-righteous bastards-"

"Back on topic," James reprimanded sternly. "Clearly what we need is-"

"_Revenge_!" the twins chorused.

Ron was watching them with an expression akin to awe.

"Did they rehearse that?" he demanded of Hermione, who shrugged.

"So the four of us… pardon, the seven of us, have decided to play a little… practical joke on dear Professor Umbridge," Fred explained.

"Nothing big, mind you, just enough to make her rethink whether or not it's in her best interests to stay here at Hogwarts," George added.

Harry and Ron exchanged worried glances.

"This isn't going to be a repeat of Dad's little stunt this morning involving Malfoy, is it? Because as satisfying as chucking Dolores Umbridge off the side of a tower would be, we'd get in major trouble for it," said Harry.

"That would be a problem," Fred admitted, "which is why we've come up with a different plan. Now, before we explain, are you three in or out?"

"Are you in or out? If you're with me, give a shout!" George sang, stopping at the incredulous stares he was getting. "What? 'In or out', from Aladdin and the King of Thieves! Don't you people watch muggle movies?"

"I've never heard of a third Aladdin being made," Hermione said thoughtfully. "Are you sure you've-"

"Never mind that!" Fred interjected, glaring at his twin, who flushed for some reason. "Back to the plan. Now, you three want to be a part of this escapade, yes?"

Harry turned to Ron and Hermione expectantly. Ron enthusiastically nodded, and even Hermione gave an exasperated huff before shrugging helplessly. "Count us in! So, what are we doing?"

"Prepare to be amazed," George cackled, "courtesy of a little invention the four of us have created. A little device we like to call the 'Mini machine'…"

"This was a bad idea," Hermione grumped as the three tired teenagers trooped down to breakfast the following morning, feet dragging and eyelids drooping. "I mean, a midnight meeting was all well and good, but staying up till 4 am preparing the prank?"

Ron gave a tired chuckle, meaning it came out more like 'heh… heh… hehhhh…' than his normal laugh. "I never thought I'd see the day Hermione claims a midnight meeting as 'all well and good'. We've rubbed off on her, Harry."

"Hopefully for the better," Harry agreed, collapsing into his seat at the Gryffindor table, giving Ginny a feeble hello. The redhead gave him an icy look, and returned pointedly to her conversation with one Dean Thomas.

_Bloody hell! Ginny! _He'd completely forgotten about her! He'd befriended her over the summer, and now he'd gone back to ignoring her!

.:Not to mention that your red-headed friend appears to be a bit on the intelligent side, meaning she will most likely suspect you and your friends are up to something:. Decimare added helpfully. .:Then again, considering your complete lack of stealth in sneaking out the common room last night, I'm surprised the entire school isn't aware of your midnight wanderings by now:.

Harry rolled his eyes.

Sure enough, the moment Ginny had finished her appraisal of her three friends, she immediately pronounced, "You're up to something. What is it?"

"Why would you think that?" Ron said, shoveling bacon into his mouth at a rapid rate.

Ginny scoffed. "Aside from the fact that you three are dead tired, Hermione has that nervous twitch in her eye that means she's broken the rules and isn't too happy about it."

Hermione gave the girl an outraged look. "I do not have a nervous twitch in my eye!"

"Yes, you do!" Ginny shot back. "It's a recent development – only started back in the Triwizard Tournament's First Task. Before that, I had to rely on your random arm spasms to know when you three were up to something illegal."

"You've known every time we've broken the rules?" Harry asked incredulously. "Why didn't you tell anyone? You could've stopped us from doing all those insane stunts!"

He knew the girl was exaggerating for their benefit, but he still couldn't help but feel that Ginny probably knew more about their comings and goings than he would like.

"You're my friends," Ginny replied primly. "Or, at least, I _thought_ you were. Imagine my shock this morning when I discovered you three went off on another adventure behind my back, when you, Harry, had specifically told me we were friends, and that friends stick together! I'm amazed I haven't hit you yet! Can you even imagine how betrayed I'm feeling right now?"

"Betrayed?" Harry asked, mortified. He'd never thought of failing to include someone in an escapade as a betrayal. He'd gone off without Ron and Hermione loads of times, and they didn't hate him, did they? _Did_ they?

Decimare's sigh echoed through his mind. .:And yet again your incredible sense of self-doubt destroys any hope you had of establishing a lasting friendship:.

Most suddenly, Ginny's bubbly laughter filled the hall, and Harry looked up to see her chocolate eyes watering from laughing so hard. "The look on your face!" she choked. "Oh, don't look so shocked, cutie, I was just teasing you. You've no obligation to me, you know that! I just thought it'd be fun to mess with your mind a bit."

Harry was still stuck on the "cutie" bit.

"Well then…" Harry said, unsure of how to react. He compensated by shoving his elbow in the butter dish, slipping, and falling hard on the floor with a thud. Although the action was undesired, it effectively broke the mounting tension, something he was very grateful for, even if it came at a rather painful price.

Breakfast continued in relative peace, a relaxing event for everyone except Harry, Ron, Hermione, and now Ginny, as they knew something was supposed to happen, but they didn't know when it would occur. Their wait wasn't long, however, because halfway through the meal, just when the late risers were straggling in through the doors, a screech echoed from the Head table, and everyone turned to watch in astonishment as Professor Umbridge began acting in a most peculiar manner. Beside Harry, Fred and George slid in, grins nearly splitting their identical faces.

Umbridge jumped on top of her chair, looking around wildly, arms grasping desperately in all directions. "I'm _shrinking_!" she shrieked, eyes widening as panic overtook her. "You're _giants_! You're all _giants_! AHHHHHH!"

"Madam Umbridge," Dumbledore said serenly as the terrified woman clutched her chair in horror. "Are you quite alright?" For Professor Umbridge was most definitely _not_ shrinking, although it seemed that she for some reason believed she was.

"She's cracked!" Ginny whispered.

"No, she hasn't," Fred corrected.

"Although we wish she was," George grinned.

"She's under the influence of the new WWWWD Mini Machine," Fred explained. "When zapped by this spectacular new device, the victim will find him or herself imagining he or she is shrinking to one sixteenth of their previous size. This induces such a high amount of fear that the victim is as effectively subdued as they would be when hit with a Stunning curse."

"Cool," Ron said, cackling as Umbridge curled up in her chair, screeching for the Giants to stop impersonating those "nasty Hogwarts people" and let her go.

"WWWWD?" Hermione said curiously. "I thought it was just the WWW; you know, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes."

"Originally, yes," George agreed. "But we've been spending quite a bit of time over the summer speaking with Sirius Black and James Potter, and they've bounced a few ideas off us."

"We realized that, in the event Fudge gets his head out of his arse and recognizes Voldemort's return, we'll have a full scale war on our hands," Fred elaborated.

"What use will Fainting Fancies and Puking Pastilles be when a Death Eater tries to curse or kill us?" George reasoned. "So we brainstormed, and with a few suggestions from our dear Marauders, we came up with WWWWD."

"Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes – War Division," they chorused.

"War division?" Ron gaped. "I didn't know you two were capable of making weapons."

"Isn't that highly illegal, starting a war-time operation without consent from the Ministry?" Hermione demanded. Fred laughed condescendingly.

"It is, dear Hermione, it is, but are you willing to risk the lives of your friends and your family over the chance that your actions are, technically, illegal?"

"This is a war, and we are soldiers," George added wisely.

Hermione was impressed. She'd never thought either of the twins capable of such… wisdom and foresight. "I do believe that's the wisest thing you've ever said," she stated approvingly. The twins pretended to be embarrassed, hiding their faces and giggling shyly. "No matter how wise you are, I suppose you'll never act seriously," she said resignedly.

After a few more minutes of mayhem, Dumbledore and McGonagall had sorted Umbridge out, with the help of James and Sirius, who'd rushed onto the scene after "hearing screams from the Great Hall". Harry thought it slightly unfair that, while Sirius chanted out an obscenely long, thoroughly ridiculous counter-spell, James discreetly flicked his wand to terminate the spell, leaving Sirius with all the credit. The two men had helped make the Mini Machine in the first place! Well, if James and Sirius had middle names, Deception and Deceit would be them.

As the crowds slowly filtered out of the Great Hall, reminiscing over Umbridge's scarlet face and piercing shriek when she'd learned what she'd done, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and the twins slipped away from the crowds to catch James and Sirius as they snuck out a side door.

"Excellent work, old chap," Fred congratulated Sirius pompously, whilst George did the same to James. "Dumbledore never suspected a thing. A job well done, by all!"

Beaming with pride (or delight, in Ginny's case), the octet began detailing the more memorable moments of the event. Before long, however, Hermione reminded Harry and Ron of the pile of homework they hadn't yet done, and regretfully the group was forced to dissipate.

"Done!" Harry announced as the Common Room clock rang out that it was now 11 PM.

"Done?" Ron demanded, scribbling away furiously at his Potions essay. "How? I've still got another one to write, not to mention all of them are terrible!"

"I finished one off in the library instead of going to detention with Umbridge, remember? Besides, Dad taught me the art of writing two feet and yet saying absolutely nothing."

"Lucky," Ron grunted. "But that won't work on Snape, Harry."

"I know," Harry agreed. "That's why his took the longest. But Binns's essay? I think I explained that the cause of the 1767 Goblin Rebellion was due to an excess amount of cheese in Switzerland."

"Do you know, that could actually be true," Ron muttered as he finished up another paragraph. "History of Magic. Bloody waste of time, if you ask me."

"Each to his own," Harry said with a shrug. "I'll just reread my essays, then. I think I got half the facts wrong in my Astronomy essay."

"You did," Hermione snapped, bending over to correct a mistake Harry had made. She originally had refused to help, as she thought they'd had plenty of time to complete the work over the week, but with Harry and Ron's pleading combined with the migraine she was getting from lack of sleep, she decided it would be easier just to help them. "You have it here that Europa is inhabited by mice, Harry. I think you mixed it up with ice. And the Big Dipper is certainly not part of the Chocolate Fudge Sundae solar system. Were you hungry while you were writing this, by any chance?"

"Sure thing," Harry said, not really hearing her as he tried to concentrate on the Transfiguration essay he was reading. It was actually rather good, which surprised Harry, as he'd never been terribly brilliant at the subject. He figured the extensive training he'd done on the subject with Sirius and James, combined with Decimare's random lessons, attributed to his growing proficiency.

The three sat in a comfortable silence, save for the occasional scratching of a quill, or a disproving huff from Hermione at a poorly worded sentence she'd discovered. By the time midnight rolled around, all three were caught up with their homework, and were just about to stand and head to bed when Percy's owl Hermes soared into the room, dropped a letter in Ron's lap, and raced off.

"Hermes?" Ron questioned in surprise as he unrolled the letter and scanned it. His face went from normal to pink to red to flaming crimson as his eyes traversed the letter, and by the end Harry was sure his friend would explode from the suppressed rage. To his relief, Ron did no such thing, instead handing the letter over to Harry and Hermione wordlessly, lips pressed tight together so as to not let any curses slip out accidentally.

Harry and Hermione read the letter slowly, and could easily see what was getting Ron so worked up. Hell, it was making Harry murderous, and it wasn't even addressed to him!

"Let me get this straight," Harry said finally. "Percy thinks I'm a psychopath, and that you should sever ties with me immediately before I get dangerous."

"Add to that a cryptic warning about Dolores Umbridge, something about the Daily Prophet, and congratulations on making Prefect…" Hermione said.

"Bloody git," Ron snarled, grabbing the letter and ripping it up viciously. The parchment scraps found a fiery death in the common room fireplace. "Thinks he's so clever, so high and mighty, knows where his allegiance lies… bah! He'll see how wrong he is sooner or later, and when he comes to me begging for forgiveness, I don't think I'll give it to him!"

"Now Ron, he may be a mindless follower of Minister Fudge, but he's still your brother…" Hermione said.

"Brother?" Ron roared. "He's no brother of mine!"

"Well," Harry said calmly, packing up his books. "I'm heading to bed now. Should you feel like severing ties with me, Ron, please wait till morning, as I'd probably forget all about it by tomorrow."

Ron snorted, anger successfully abated for the moment. "Will do, mate, will do. See you tomorrow."

"Goodnight."

"Night."

"She's _what_?"

"The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts," Ginny repeated patiently. "It was in the Daily Prophet this morning. Educational Decree #23, or some such nonsense."

"This is bad," Harry declared gloomily. "How did she manage to get so much power so quickly? I don't get it!"

A sudden shriek tore through their conversation, and Ginny winced as she said quietly, "I think Hermione's found the article."

"This is all Fudge's fault," Harry decided. "Umbridge can get away with anything as long as that idiot's in power. Do you know what powers the 'High Inquisitor' gets?"

Shrugging, Ginny pulled out the article and scanned it again. "Well, she can inspect teachers and decide whether or not they're fit to teach-"

"I bet you the first to go is Trelawney," Ron opined as he ambled into the common room, his hair, outfit, and general appearance a mess as was usual for Monday mornings. "And I can't say I'll be too sad about it, either."

"Honestly," Ginny said impatiently, straightening her brother's tie and fixing his robes. "How can you live with being such a slob? You must be a complete catastrophe whenever I'm not here to fix you up!"

"Hermione helps," Ron said smugly. "Although, she does tend to yank at my hair a bit harder than necessary… wonder why…"

"DID YOU SEE THIS?" Hermione shrieked as she burst into the common room, waving the Daily Prophet around wildly. "They've made Umbridge High Inquisitor of Hogwarts! That's not even a real post!"

"Something's got to be done about Umbridge," Harry declared.

"Yes, but what?" Hermione asked.

Harry frowned in thought. "I don't know. I'll think on it, and come back to you when I've got something."

"I might have a way," Hermione said slowly, "but I'll need to do a little research first, if you don't mind."

"Works for me," Ginny agreed. "Tell us when you've got something. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to meet up with Michael."

"Michael?" Ron demanded as Ginny ran out of the room, auburn hair fanning out behind her. "Who's Michael?"

"Michael Corner," Harry said gloomily, although he wasn't sure why he was so depressed about it. "Ginny's boyfriend."

"Ginny doesn't have a boyfriend, she'd tell me!" Ron protested. "Which one is he?"

"The Ravenclaw that sits next to Neville in Astronomy," Hermione supplied, quite amused at Ron's over-protectiveness.

"I don't like him," Ron said immediately.

"Big surprise," Hermione muttered. "They met at the Yule ball and have been going out ever since. She didn't want to tell you in case you decided to kill Michael for going anywhere near her."

"Don't worry," he assured her. "I'll do so the next chance I get."

Okay, maybe it wasn't too reassuring after all.

"Right, Ron," Harry said patiently. "You do that. Go kill the nasty Michael who's making Ginny so happy, and being a complete gentleman about it as well."

"Are you being sarcastic?" Ron asked.

Harry shrugged. "As sad as it is, I don't even know."

"Fine," Ron decided. "I won't kill the bastard. But if he hurts a hair on my baby sister's head, I'll murder him, no questions asked."

"That's if I haven't done so first," Harry muttered, not knowing why he'd said that. Where Ginny was concerned, Harry didn't seem to have any control over his actions or thoughts.

_Damn hormones_.

"Wands away, and quills out, please," Umbridge trilled, fixing Harry with a gaze as if to say, 'Just try misbehaving, boy, and I'll have you in detention so fast you won't know what hit you.' Or maybe she actually did say that… Harry was so tired he couldn't tell which.

"You will read Chapter Two of Defensive Magical Theory. There will be no need to talk. Begin." Umbridge settled back at her desk as if it were great fun setting horribly boring reading exercises. Harry didn't even bother opening his book, as he and the rest of the class were busy watching as Hermione raised her hand in the air, hoping for a repeat performance of last week.

Umbridge had clearly known such a thing would happen again, and had apparently worked out a strategy for it. Waddling over to Hermione's desk, she asked softly, "You have a question, Miss Granger?"

Hermione didn't even bother to keep her voice down, stating in firm tones, "I've already read Chapter Two."

"Well then, read Chapter Three."

"I've read the whole book," she said flatly, eyeing Umbridge to see her reaction. The woman couldn't hide how unwillingly impressed she was, but compensated by giving Hermione a stern glare.

"Then you should be able to tell me what Mister Slinkhard says about jinxes in Chapter-"

"_HI_!"

Everyone whirled around to see Sirius standing in the doorway, grinning cheekily.

"Mister Black," Umbridge greeted icily. "What brings you to my door in the middle of class?"

"Security check!" he announced, winking at Harry, who gave him a bemused look.

"I wasn't aware Hogwarts had 'security checks'," Umbridge sniffed, obviously irritated at having her little debate with Hermione interrupted.

"It doesn't normally," Sirius agreed. "But what with such an important lady as yourself in the building, and the Minister assigning us to step up security, Auror Potter and I have created a standard security check for every class to participate in. Safety first!"

"Indeed," Umbridge said distastefully, although she could clearly do nothing to stop Sirius from holding his little security check. Behind her, the class was eagerly whispering their hope of getting out of the rest of the lesson thanks to Black's little security exercise. "What does this check entail? And make it quick, Black, I've got a class to teach."

"Funny, I thought they were just reading their text books," Sirius said with a grin. "And you will address me as Mister Black or _Auror_ Black, Madam Umbridge."

Umbridge clearly knew not to mess with an Auror when he was annoyed like Sirius was. "My apologies, Mister Black. Now, can you get on with it, please?"

"Don't rush me!" Sirius admonished. "These things take time, you understand. Safety first!"

His new mantra had half the class in near-hysterics. Umbridge had gone from irritated to murderous in about three seconds, and she couldn't do a thing about it.

_Sweet, sweet revenge, _Harry cackled to himself.

"Now," Sirius announced. "The purpose of this drill is to see how quickly you can evacuate the school in case of an emergency." Winking at Harry, he added in a whisper, "We got the idea from your tales of Muggle Fire Drills."

Harry grinned. This could take all afternoon, if Sirius played it right.

"At unspecified points throughout the year, at completely random times-"

"Coinciding perfectly with my class, I don't doubt," Umbridge muttered.

"- Auror Potter and I will ring a very loud and obnoxious bell, which will be your signal to get out of Hogwarts as quickly as humanly possible. Any questions? No? Good." He fingered a small pin on his collar that was most likely some sort of communication device. "Prongs, we are all clear, repeat, all clear. Sound the alarm at will."

Not two seconds later, the intercom crackled to life, and out of nowhere came the most horrible sound imaginable. Not only was it just as obnoxious as promised, the sound level was near deafening. And the worst part was, it was just like a fire bell – it went on and on and on and on.

"What is this?" Harry hollered at Sirius as he rushed over to the shaggy-haired Auror.

"Deaf Con One," Sirius exclaimed proudly. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Fantastic," Ron agreed miserably. "I think you've deafened half the students by now."

"Madam Pomfrey will fix them up," Sirius shrugged dismissively. "Now, come on, you've got to evacuate! It's the only way James and I could think of to get you out of class before Harry got any more detentions."

Rolling their eyes, the trio turned and struggled their way through the crowds of students on their quest to reach the front doors. They eventually managed, and nearly cried in relief to be outside the castle and away from the ear-splitting alarm. The students crowded down by the lakeside, as far away from the school as they could, because the alarm was still going, and it was really starting to get annoying.

Finally the bell stopped ringing, and James's voice rang out over whatever sound system they'd managed to rig up over the past week. "Good job, students of Hogwarts! It only took you… fifteen minutes to evacuate. That's great! Of course, in a real attack, you'd all be dead before you reached the Great Hall, watching in terror as mutilated corpses piled up around you, higher and higher and higher and… where was I? Oh yes. We'll work on this drill, don't worry! Every Monday at this time for the rest of the year, if we have to!"

Harry cheered along with the other students, noting Umbridge's furious look. The best part was, Umbridge could do nothing to stop Sirius and James doing exactly as they liked, because Minister Fudge himself had assigned them to be here!

Just as Harry had hoped, his guardians managed to make the drill last the rest of the afternoon. As James happily announced, "In order to make this realistic, you'll have to wait for the bell to ring again, signaling you can re-enter the school. Most unfortunately, the system is still faulty, so you'll have to wait while we get the alarm back on line."

The rest of the afternoon was spent in a student-organized dueling tournament, which everyone eagerly participated in. The highlight of the day was definitely when Harry hit Malfoy with a Hurling Hex right between the eyes, sending the arrogant blond flying head over heels into the lake with a great splash. Colin Creevey got several excellent shots of the event, and promised to distribute copies to anyone who wanted one. His arms were overflowing with orders.

Finally the bell rang again, amazingly enough at the exact same time the normal end-of-classes bell sounded. "What a fantastic coincidence," Harry observed dryly as he headed back to the school with his classmates.

"The drill was quite well planned, wasn't it?" Hermione agreed. "It got us out of Umbridge's classes, and for a perfectly legitimate reason. Although we really shouldn't be skipping class _every_ week…"

"This is _Umbridge's_ class we're talking about, Hermione," Ron reasoned. "It's not like we do anything."

Hermione had to concede the point. "Still," she said worriedly. "What if James and Sirius think it a clever idea to get us out of _all_ our classes? I wouldn't put it past them."

"Don't worry about it," Harry advised. "If they try something, I'll put them back in line."

Ron snorted. "Oh yeah, 'cause a fifteen year old must seem _real_ menacing to two licensed, adult wizards."

Harry mock-glared. "I am much more powerful than you believe, Mister Weasley."

"Oooh, I'm shaking in my boots."

Laughing, the trio resumed their march towards the castle, taking pleasure in the fact that no matter how bad things got, their friends would always be there to help them through it, lending a helping hand, or, in this case, a stupid comment to ease the monotony.


	23. Inspections

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Twenty Three – Inspections

Following Sirius and James's impromptu fire drill, as well as the morning's Mini Machine incident, Harry was pleased to note that Professor Umbridge was suitably subdued the rest of the day, barely making a sound and in fact looking quite disconcerted. While Hermione declared this was a good thing, as she was finally learning her place at Hogwarts, Ron was certain the woman was planning something sinister, most likely a revenge on James, Sirius, and possibly the twins. Harry wasn't sure either way, and decided to keep a cool head about the matter, and simply see how things worked themselves out.

Tuesday morning dawned sunny and bright, with not a cloud in the sky, the bluebirds chirping merrily as they soared past Harry's open window. The day, interestingly enough, would turn out to be just as cheering and fulfilling as the weather was. Which, considering it was Harry, was a very unexpected occurrence indeed.

As Harry sleepily sipped his coffee in the Great Hall, Hermione and Ron pulled up seats on either side of him, both looking rather apprehensive. "What's eating you two?" he asked as he took a bite of his toast.

"Umbridge," Ron said, as if the word explained everything. Which it did.

"She's inspecting classes," Hermione explained. "She inspected Flitwick yesterday, and today she'll be sitting in on our Transfiguration and Care of Magical Creatures classes."

"Oh," Harry blinked, staring blankly at his friends. "Oh! That's a bad thing, right?"

"Not necessarily," Fred offered as he and George slid in across from the trio, waving briefly to Ginny, who was off at the Ravenclaw table eating with Michael Corner. "The Charms class she inspected was ours, and all she did was sit in the corner and take notes. Nothing too horrible, which surprised us, but then, she actually seemed respectful of Flitwick, which might be why she was on such good behavior."

"Well," Hermione said, waving a piece of toast in front of Ron's eyes in an attempt to make him cease his glaring at the back of Michael Corner's head, who's hand was currently snaking it's way around Ginny's slender waist. "She should definitely respect Professor McGonagall, so hopefully that class won't go over too badly."

"Yeah, she's one of the best teachers in the school!" Harry agreed. "Although Care of Magical Creatures… where _is_ Hagrid anyway?"

George leaned towards the trio inconspicuously. "We're not supposed to know this, but Fred and I heard Moody talking to Snape over the Extendable Ears. Hagrid's apparently off visiting his 'relatives' – and we all know who _they_ are."

"Giants!" Ron exclaimed. "He's gone to visit the Giants all alone? Is he _mad_?"

"Shhh!" Fred whispered hurriedly. "Yell it for the whole hall to hear, why don't you? We don't know the details, but we _do_ know he was supposed to be here for the start of term, but he's been delayed for an unknown reason."

"Most children don't whisper at the breakfast table," a sickeningly sweet voice trilled behind them. The five whirled around to find a smirking Umbridge standing behind them, looking quite pleased. "It's considered impolite. People might think you have something to hide. You aren't hiding anything, are you, my dears?"

"Absolutely not," Hermione replied stiffly. Umbridge looked as if Christmas had been cancelled, and headed back to the teacher's table with a frustrated huff.

"What is _with_ her?" Harry demanded incredulously. "Did she actually think we'd tell her if we were planning something?"

Fred shrugged. "Who knows. Anyway, George and I have… business elsewhere, and must attend to it. See y'all later!"

"'Y'all'?" Hermione demanded as the twins slipped out of the hall. "Isn't that an American term?"

Harry shrugged. "Maybe they went to the States."

Ron frowned. "I don't think so. I would've known about it."

"Strange," Hermione said with a puzzled look. "Well, maybe they just like American slang. Anyway, class starts in ten minutes, so we should get going."

"Where is she?" Hermione whispered anxiously. "The bell's about to ring! Umbridge will definitely take points off if Professor McGonagall is late to class!"

"Don't worry!" Harry soothed the agitated brunette. "When has McGonagall _ever_ been late for a class?"

"Never," Hermione admitted, calming down slightly. The duo turned, along with Ron, to watch Umbridge as she sat in the corner scribbling away on a piece of parchment. "Oooh, I do hope she comes soon…"

As if by magic, the door opened at that exact instant, and into the classroom swept Professor McGonagall, hair in its usual bun, robes neatly coifed as always, and… she was smiling.

Not just smiling, but full out laughing, cheeks flushed as if she'd been in hysterics for the past few minutes. The reason for this soon became apparent as James and Sirius swept in behind her, Sirius nudging McGonagall slightly, which actually caused her to giggle. _Giggle_! McGonagall!

"Milady, may we escort you to your seat?" James asked grandly as he gestured dramatically towards her desk.

"Still as foolish as ever, aren't you, James?" McGonagall said sternly, yet at the same time allowing Sirius to escort her up to her desk. Well, perhaps not allowing him… more like not stopping him, as Sirius seemed rather put out by the lack of… affection she was showing.

"Honestly," she said with a slight laugh.

"She looks fifty years younger!" Harry told Ron in astonishment.

"Look at Umbridge!" Ron whispered back, a delighted smile on his face. Over in the corner, Professor Umbridge, upon seeing James and Sirius enter the classroom, had turned a nasty shade of white and was looking fairly murderous.

"She's probably still remembering the fire drill," Harry guessed. "She looks ready to kill them!"

"Don't be stupid," Hermione said carelessly. "That's against the law."

Harry and Ron didn't even know what to say to such a pronouncement.

Back up at the front, McGonagall seemed not to notice the presence of Dolores Umbridge in her classroom. "Pardon my lateness, class, our newest security guards held me up, I'm afraid," she said pointedly, glaring at James and Sirius, who grinned victoriously. "Apparently they cannot tell when they are being rebuked, and will therefore spend the rest of the class with us, helping out. Perhaps that will teach them to refrain from holding up professors in the future."

James winked at Harry, while Sirius tilted his head discreetly towards Umbridge, smirking mischievously. Getting their intentions, Harry turned to Ron and Hermione and whispered, "They're here to annoy Umbridge. Let's just lie low and watch the masters at work."

"Do you think McGonagall made them stay for class, the same day Umbridge is inspecting, on purpose?" Ron questioned as Umbridge furiously scribbled away on her parchment.

Harry shrugged. "Who knows? She's full of surprises, lately. Everyone is."

"Tell me about it," Ron agreed fervently. Their conversation ended as McGonagall took center stage and began today's lesson, still based around the ever-frustrating vanishing spell.

"Mr. Finnigan, kindly collect the homework and place it on my desk. Miss Patil, that had better not be homework that you're working on. Miss Brown, take these mice and distribute them, one to each classmate. Don't be silly, girl, they won't hurt you."

Lavender took the box with a muffled squeak, and slowly distributed them, clearly unnerved by Sirius and James's evil grins.

"Messers Black and Potter, if you so much as _think_ of charming those mice, I will see you polishing trophies for the rest of your natural lives. Do I make myself clear?" McGonagall snapped preemptively.

"I'm hurt!" Sirius protested. "We would never consider such a dastardly deed, Madam!"

McGonagall snorted. "Indeed. So what was that little incident on Valentines Day, 1976, all about, hmm?"

James blushed. "How were we supposed to know mice are allergic to Bertie Botts Beans?" he demanded. "Honestly, how likely was _that_?"

"I still remember the little red mouse that spewed a fifty-foot jet of fire. Good times," Sirius said reminiscently.

The class quickly stifled their laughter as McGonagall's lips pressed into a thin line, clearly not impressed. "Well, Mister Black, you certainly didn't find it half as amusing when your best hat was burnt to a crisp, now did you?"

As Sirius spluttered out a retort, Harry sighed and turned to his mouse. "Let's leave it to them, shall we? This mouse has to be vanished, after all."

"Quite," Hermione agreed. "Shall we get to it, then?"

"Hem hem."

"What was that?" Ron asked as he drew out his wand. Harry shrugged.

"No idea. Sounds vaguely familiar, though."

"Hem hem!"

This time Harry was able to locate the source of the noise. That was where he'd remembered the irritating cough from! Umbridge had used it at the welcoming ceremony to interrupt Dumbledore.

"HEM HEM!" she coughed much more loudly than was considered normal. McGonagall finally noticed her, turning to face the toad-woman with a furious expression.

"What is it that you want, precisely?" she snapped irritably.

"I couldn't help but wonder if you'd gotten my note about your inspection?" Umbridge simpered.

"What, this thing?" McGonagall asked in disgust, holding up a small, pink slip as far away from her person as possible, as if it were diseased. "Clearly I had, or else I would have asked what you were doing in my classroom, Dolores."

She turned back to the blackboard, as if dismissing Umbridge was a perfectly acceptable thing to do. Harry watched in fascination as Umbridge's face reddened in embarrassment, and she huddled over her parchment and began writing even more furiously. Over in the corner, James and Sirius exchanged elated grins.

By the end of Transfiguration, Harry had successfully vanished his mouse faster than even Hermione, and had moved on to kittens, much to Ron's chagrin. Ron had successfully annoyed Hermione even more than usual with his incompetence at Transfiguration, which meant she spent most of the class berating him for his laziness. James and Sirius had successfully turned Umbridge's hair orange, stolen her notes and replaced them with Playwitch magazines, tied her shoelaces together, charmed her robes florescent yellow, and gotten yelled at by McGonagall, who wasn't really as angry as she pretended to be. All in all, a productive class.

Following Transfiguration were several boring classes, which Harry spent catching up on some much-needed sleep. Finally, the last class of the day was Care of Magical Creatures, which also featured the Teacher-From-Hell, Dolores Umbridge.

"I think I like that," Ron approved as the trio headed back up to the castle following the COMC lesson, taught by Professor Grubbly-Plank. "Teacher-from-Hell. Has a nice ring to it."

"You should be more respectful of teachers," Hermione said disapprovingly.

"This from the girl who spent the entire lunch hour criticizing her teaching style," Ron said scathingly.

"Urgh!" Hermione exclaimed. "I disown you!"

"You never owned me to begin with!"

"That isn't the point, Ronald!" And with that Hermione marched off towards the castle with a huff. Harry and Ron watched her go, Ron disgruntled and Harry just plain confused.

Suddenly, a small Hufflepuff boy jumped out of the nearby bushes.

"Frog!" he exclaimed.

"What?" Harry asked in bewilderment.

"I like frogs. Especially yellow ones," he explained. "I want to be a budgie," he added.

"Oh," Harry replied, not quite sure what to say. "Who are you?"

The boy struck a dramatic pose. "I am… Tristan! King of the Monkey Slaves! You can call me Tris, though. Or Tan. Or Ris. Or Stan. You know what? Just call me Tristan."

"Uh… alright…" Harry agreed slowly. "What year are you in?"

Tristan frowned. "What?"

"What year?" Harry replied patiently.

The boy blinked. "Rainbows are pretty." With a cheerful giggle, Tristan cavorted away, whistling what sounded vaguely like the theme song of the Simpsons.

Ron blinked. "Gee, that was strange. Anyway, as I was saying…"

As Ron babbled on, Harry pondered the strange boy they'd just encountered. A Hufflepuff, judging by his yellow tie and crest, but Harry just couldn't recall seeing the boy around the castle. Was he a first year? Tristan… the name didn't ring any bells. Well, whoever the kid was, he was clearly high on something or other, and Harry planned to stay as far away as possible from him. If only he'd gotten the kid's surname!

"My head hurts," Ron complained as the trio sat in front of the fire, doing their homework or, in Ron's case, whining and moaning. Hermione absently waved her wand at Ron, conjuring a large brick, which dropped with a thunk on Ron's head. "OWWW!"

"Huh?" she asked blankly, before noticing the brick. "Oh, sorry Ron! That was supposed to be a pillow! I was just thinking about something else, and wasn't concentrating hard enough! Sorry!"

"Right," Ron moaned as he tentatively prodded his aching head. "Sure it was an accident. Like I believe _that_…"

"Don't," Harry said impatiently.

"Don't what?" Hermione asked in confusion.

"Don't start fighting," he clarified.

"We weren't going to!"

"Sure you weren't," Harry replied disbelievingly.

"We weren't," Hermione protested childishly. "Oh, what am I going to do with you, Harry?"

"Edit my essay?" he asked hopefully, shoving the completed essay towards her. She took it, but didn't even glance at it, instead fixing Harry with a thoughtful gaze.

"You know, Harry, I've been thinking-"

"Did it hurt?" Ron sniggered. The next second he was flying across the room into a large red armchair, arm whacking painfully against a candelabra.

"No," she replied primly, "but that certainly should have. Anyway, Harry, I've been thinking about the conversation we had yesterday, about doing something about Umbridge."

"You're taking up assassination, then?"

"Of course not. But I've had an idea… you realize that we aren't going to learn any Defense Against the Dark Arts from Umbridge this year, right? Well, I've come up with a way to defy Umbridge _and_ learn the Defense material."

She waited as if to judge their reactions. All she got was blank stares.

"Well? Are you going to tell us?" Ron demanded.

Hermione sighed. "We will form a secret group that will meet and learn Defense Against the Dark Arts! Not only will Umbridge be furious with us, we'll be learning at the same time! The ultimate deception! Rebellion against the evil oppressors!"

"You've been talking to Sirius and James, haven't you?" Harry asked wearily, nonetheless interested in Hermione's idea.

"Indeed, and they suggested the perfect teacher for the group as well."

"Who?"

"You!" she replied, beaming at Harry, who was frankly bewildered.

"_Me_? _Why_?"

She rolled her eyes. "Because you're the best student in this school at Defense, Harry!"

"No I'm not! You've beaten me on all the exams!"

Hermione shook her head. "Not on the exams set by real teachers, Harry. Quirrel was a complete fake, Lockhart couldn't cast a jinx to save his life, and you never sat Moody's exam. The only _real_ exam we've ever both sat was Lupin's, and you beat me!"

"So I did," Harry agreed, warming to the idea. Add that to all that he'd learned over the summer with James, Sirius, and Decimare… "You know, the idea has merit."

She blinked. "Really? I thought you'd refuse, or at least start going on about how it was only luck that saved you all those encounters with Voldemort, and skill had nothing to do with it."

"Self-confidence classes with Sirius and my father have a way of changing your outlook on things," Harry explained, excited about the prospect of a secret club. "Wait a minute… have you told Sirius and my dad about this?"

"I mentioned it once or twice," she agreed. "It was my idea, initially, and they helped me flesh it out. So what do you think?"

"I dunno…" Harry said. "I'm assuming I wouldn't just be teaching you two?"

"There are probably others who want to pass their OWL," Ron said dryly. "Maybe we could hold a meeting or something for all potential members? We'd have to make sure they're trustworthy, of course."

"Naturally," Hermione agreed. "I'll spread the word, and we can meet, say, on the Hogsmeade weekend a couple weeks from now."

"Can't we start sooner?" Harry pleaded. "I really want to have the satisfaction of knowing we're opposing Umbridge, and there's nothing she can do about it."

Ron laughed. "I'm with you, mate."

"Hogsmeade weekend," Hermione said firmly. "I'll need that long to plan it out and spread the word."

"You could just tell Parvati and Lavender," Ron suggested. "The whole school would know within the hour."

Hermione snorted. "As true as that is, we don't want the whole school to know, especially not the Slytherins, so just let me handle it, alright?"

"Sure," Ron agreed readily, yawning. "I think it's time to head to bed, guys. All this anti-establishment plotting has exhausted me."

"Brilliant idea," Harry agreed. "We'll see you tomorrow then, Hermione? Good night."

"Night," she replied absently, already engrossed in her plans to undermine Umbridge's authority. The evil woman wouldn't know what hit her.

"Hem hem."

Professor Trelawney stopped mid-speech as Professor Umbridge stepped into the Divination classroom, clearing her throat imperiously. Jangling her beads nervously, Hogwarts' resident seer turned towards Umbridge, a welcoming, yet clearly false, smile firmly in place.

"I trust you got my notice regarding today's inspection?" Umbridge asked briskly, taking a seat next to Trelawney's desk, and beginning to take notes, although on what, Harry had no idea.

"Indeed," Trelawney said, giving her another fake smile, mouth twitching nervously. There was a brief silence as the class watched Trelawney and Umbridge stare at each other, Trelawney clearly unsure of what to do.

"Don't let my presence bother you," Umbridge finally snapped. "Continue on with your class."

Trelawney seemed to snap out of her daze. "Right then… children, turn to page thirty seven of the Dream Oracle and interpret last nights dreams." In an attempt to seem more in charge of the class, she added, "Keep your voices down. Anyone misbehaving will receive detention. And be punished. Severely punished."

Umbridge seemed unimpressed, despite Trelawney's efforts.

"You know, I almost feel sorry for her," Ron whispered as he and Harry pulled out their books. "I don't like the old bat one bit, but she's nothing compared to Umbridge."

"I just hope she doesn't inspect Potions," Harry replied. "I'll go insane trying to figure out which teacher to root for. Umbridge is awful, for sure, but Snape is no slouch either."

"Too true," Ron agreed. "So, you want to make up a dream, or shall I?"

"You did last class, so I suppose it's my turn," Harry said reluctantly, watching Trelawney draw closer to their table. "Okay… I dreamed that… um…" Trelawney had reached their table now, and was looking at him expectantly, as was Umbridge from her position at the front of the class. As Sirius always said, when you're in a tight spot, improvise.

"Well, Potter, kindly interpret your dream." Trelawney snapped.

Harry crossed his eyes, swayed wobbily, and hummed, "_Ommmmmmm_."

Umbridge stared at him, completely confused, as did Ron and the rest of the class. Trelawney was the only one who realized what he was doing, although Ron quickly caught up on it. Trelawney just happened to believe his acting, while Ron did not.

"Potter's going into a trance!" Trelawney exclaimed breathlessly. "Everyone back up and give him some room! Harry, what do you see?"

Harry inwardly groaned. Why had this seemed like such a good idea? Stupid Sirius and his stupid advice. Well, this whole situation was his fault, so he supposed he'd better play it out.

"I see… I see…" Harry began, but his imagination came up blank again. To give himself thinking time, he quickly added an, "_Ommmmmm_."

Beside him, Ron whispered quickly, "Tristan."

Tristan? Oh yes, that crazy Hufflepuff they'd met yesterday! Inspired, Harry gave one more "_Ommmm_" for reassurance, before saying mysteriously, "I see… yellow frogs, swaying on a rainbow of… enslaved monkeys… _ommmmmm_…"

Harry dramatically uncrossed his eyes and swayed unsteadily, before pretending to come out of his trance with no recollection of what he'd just said. Trelawney was watching him with barely disguised awe.

"You just went into a trance, Potter!" she said in delight.

"Of course he did," Umbridge scoffed, giving Harry a glare, which he returned in kind. "If this trance of his was so genuine, what does it mean?"

Trelawney gave her a condescending look, as if disgusted the woman dared question a seer's words. "Yellow symbolizes cowardice, and frogs are commonly seen as treacherous. Swaying denotes uncertainty, whilst a rainbow means insubstantial happiness."

"And the . . . what was it? Enslaved monkeys?" Umbridge demanded.

"Monkeys denote wisdom, and slaves of course mean bondage or a lack of choice. What do you think that means, Potter?" Trelawney asked, obviously thinking that allowing him to answer was some sort of treat for having gone into the trance in the first place.

Harry wracked his brain for an answer. "Er… a cowardly, treacherous person will be uncertain of his path in life, because although he thinks he has happiness, he is in fact acting through no choice of his own. Oh, and the choice he makes will make him… er… wise?"

Everyone, excepting Umbridge, was clearly impressed. Beside him, Ron whispered, "I never knew you were so good at BS, Harry! Why didn't you tell me?"

Conversely, Parvati was regarding him as if he were some sort of God, saying breathily, "He's so wise!"

Ron snickered. "Sure he is. Why don't you predict my future next, Harry?"

"Yes, please do, Potter," Umbridge said, smiling evilly. Harry knew for a fact that Umbridge hadn't believed a word of his phony trance.

Glaring at Ron, Harry "_ommmm_"ed for a minute, before randomly stringing phrases together to produce his next 'prophecy'.

"The swallow of happiness cannot see the… er… badger of truth, for the worm of chaos infects the apple."

Ron couldn't help himself. He burst out into laughter, ignoring Trelawney's scandalized look. But before she could say anything, the bell rang, thankfully ending the class. Harry and Ron were out of that room in a split second, laughing madly as they dashed away.

"Did you see her face?" Ron cackled. "She actually thought you had a vision!"

"Talk about gullible," Harry agreed.

"Incidentally," Ron mentioned casually as they headed towards their next class. "What was up with you likening me to a swallow?"

"Spur of the moment," Harry replied defensively. "It was your fault in the first place."

"True enough."

That night, Harry had another dream. Not just a dream, but a vision, a genuine one, not one of Trelawney's pretend ones. And this vision, like the other few he'd had over the summer, featured Peter Pettigrew and the mysterious shield he'd stolen from Voldemort.

As Harry floated through the air, he spotted Pettigrew sitting on a rocky outcropping, hugging the shield tightly to himself, looking underfed and worse than Harry had ever seen him. _Defying Voldemort must really be destroying him_, Harry reflected.

Well, at least Pettigrew had turned away from the Dark Lord for the moment, and that was all that counted. The question now was what Pettigrew was going to with the shield, and also the rest of his life. Would he try and rejoin the light side? Or perhaps stay a fugitive? Harry only pondered this because they were the same questions Pettigrew was currently whispering furiously to himself.

Suddenly, an image came to Harry's mind, and he saw himself in the Divination class, giving his phony prophecy. "A cowardly, treacherous person will be uncertain of his path in life, because although he thinks he has happiness, he is in fact acting through no choice of his own. The choice will make him wise."

Pettigrew had thought he was content at the Dark Lord's bidding, but he realized he was nothing more than a pawn. He'd stolen the shield and escaped Voldemort's clutches, and… was it possible? Was he about to make the 'choice' Harry had predicted in his ludicrous prophecy? Was the prophecy actually true?

Most suddenly, Pettigrew stood with renewed energy, face set in determination, looking more sure of himself than Harry had ever seen him. Clutching the shield tightly, Pettigrew said loudly, as if to ascertain his words, "I will not be a pawn of the Dark Lord. I've been given a second chance, and I will take it. I will not go back to Him, no matter what."

With that said, Pettigrew marched onwards towards the chain of mountains before him. Harry didn't know where he was going, but for the first time felt a peace of mind. Pettigrew had renounced the Dark Lord, was no longer a Death Eater. He would no longer threaten Harry and his friends. The thought was so wonderful that Harry completely forgot about the fact that his false prophecy had, in a way, been fulfilled the very same day it had been created.


	24. At the Hogs Head

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Twenty Four – At the Hogs Head

Three weeks after Harry's little "prophecy" adventure, life had thankfully settled back into at least some sort of the normality that was expected at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. More precisely, the teachers were back to their stern, unmovable selves, homework was piled upon the students like there was no tomorrow, and the Weasley twins were slowly but surely driving the whole castle insane.

Tristan the King of Monkey Slaves, it turned out, was not the King of anything whatsoever. The small Hufflepuff had merely gotten hold of an early, untested version of a sweet Fred and George sheepishly told Professor McGonagall was supposed to turn the eater into a butterfly. Needless to say, one look at the cackling Tristan, and McGonagall had Fred and George up to their ears in detentions. When asked his opinion on the matter, Tristan had merely replied, "Frog," and dashed off to "hunt the evil wooly rocks". Harry, Hermione, and Ron suspected Fred and George's sweet actually had nothing to do with the mental state of the child, which most of the school readily agreed with.

As the 'Tristan' incident gradually slipped out of everyone's minds, Harry made himself promise that he would keep an eye on the kid. After all, hadn't the prophecy he'd made based off Tristan been stunningly accurate? There was something off about him, and Harry wouldn't be the one to underestimate him.

Aside from this, however, the goings were good for Harry, Hermione, and Ron. Although keeping up with their workload was still an ever-increasing problem, their moods were always lightened by the random evacuation drills that somehow managed to take place during every Potions and DADA class they had. Hermione had at first been apprehensive about this, as they may be missing important information when the exams came around, but a quick look at Umbridge's increasingly red face effectively killed her objections.

On Thursday, October 3, it was announced that a Hogsmeade trip would take place the upcoming Saturday. This was why on Saturday, October 5th, Harry, Hermione, and Ron could be found trudging up the sunny paths of Hogsmeade village towards the old, rundown Hogs Head pub.

"Why are we meeting here again?" Ron asked apprehensively as they neared the beaten-up building. "Isn't it off limits to students?"

Harry snorted. "When has _that_ ever stopped us?"

"Well, _yes_," Ron agreed, "but aren't we supposed to be meeting other students here? You know, people who're interested in this little DADA club?"

"That's right," Hermione said, placing her hands on the handle of the pub's heavy door and tugging it open. As the three entered the dingy pub, they were slightly surprised by the denizens of the room. At the counter sat a man covered head to toe in rags, two witches occupied a low table chatting casually about what sounded suspiciously like cannibalism, and over in the corner sat a witch shrouded in a dark cloak. This served to make Hermione very nervous.

"Did you notice everyone's face is covered?" she whispered to Harry, who shrugged.

"I rather think it's the fashion around here."

"Seems a dodgy place, if you ask me," Ron voiced. "Oy! That old bloke's drinking Firewhiskey! I've always wanted to try some of that stuff!"

"You're a _Prefect_!" Hermione hissed reproachfully, sitting down at a nearby table. "Honestly, you have a responsibility to set a good example for younger students…"

Harry tuned the two out as he too sat, carefully scanning the room, although more for Decimare's sake than his own. This was Hogsmeade! Certainly there weren't any criminals here!

.:Shall I kill you now, or wait for your naiveté to do it for you?:. Decimare hissed sarcastically. .:Wake up, Master! We aren't in Hogwarts anymore! That witch in the corner could be a Death Eater, for all you know! They're probably all eavesdropping as we speak!:.

'We aren't speaking, we're communicating telepathically,' Harry corrected the snake, more to be contrary than anything else. Now that Decimare mentioned it, some of his fellow drinkers did look a bit suspicious… particularly the one covered in rags at the counter, who did indeed seem to be watching them more than was normal.

"Shut up, you two!" Harry hissed at his friends, who looked at him quizzically, not even bothering to seem offended. He'd had to shut them up so many times they'd grown used to it. "We're being watched."

"What?" Hermione asked in alarm, albeit quietly, clamping a hand on Ron's arm to stop him from looking around maniacally and giving away they knew they were being watched. "Honestly, Ron, you are so clueless sometimes."

"Did I insult you?" he demanded self-righteously. "Seriously, though, what do we do? You told everyone to meet us here…"

The trio thoughtfully sipped the butterbeers Hermione had ordered sometime during her argument with Ron. At last, Harry decided, "We'll have the meeting anyway. Just keep your voices down, and hopefully the eavesdropper will lose interest. Besides, it's not like we're doing anything incriminating, right?"

"I've double checked the rules," Hermione agreed. "We aren't doing anything illegal, I'm sure of it. I even asked Professor Flitwick about the Hogs Head, and he said students are allowed to go _anywhere_ in Hogsmeade, no exceptions."

"At least we've got that working for us," Harry said in relief, turning back to his butterbeer. "Er… the meeting was for 1:30, right? 'Cause it's 1:30 now, and no one's here… or not…"

For at that exact moment the Hogs Head door burst open, casting an almost unbearable amount of sunshine into the room. The light was then blocked off as what to Harry seemed like the entire population of Hogwarts stampeded into the tiny pub, chatting and laughing uproariously. At the counter, the barkeeper looked up in mild interest, eyes nearly popping when the hordes of students invaded his pub. Harry suspected the old man had never seen so many people in his pub at one time.

To Harry's immense pleasure, almost every potential secret-club member was someone he was friends with (or at least didn't hate the guts of). The students included Fred, George, Ginny, all the Gryffindor boys excepting Seamus, Parvati, a gaggle of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs (including Tristan, for some unexplained reason), as well as a couple others Harry didn't recognize. Harry was quite surprised that so many of them trusted him enough to want to learn from him, but if they placed their faith in him, good for them!

Beside him, Fred was doing a head count.

"Blimey," he whistled. "Barkeep, that'll be… 26 butterbeers, if you please. Cough up your silver, kids, I haven't nearly enough gold to cover this." Collecting gold from various students, Fred handed the money over to the barkeeper, who blinked in bemusement. "Er… now, yeah?"

Still eyeing the students suspiciously, the old man slowly reached behind the counter and began pulling out dusty old bottles of what was hopefully butterbeer. Back at their table, Hermione was in the process of finding enough seats for all 29 of them, and was having quite some difficulty with it.

"Calm down," George told her with a laugh, pulling out his wand and conjuring up twelve extra chairs. Hermione gaped at him. "What?"

"You only learn to conjure objects in seventh year!" Hermione exclaimed.

George eyed her as if she had three heads. "Yes… I'm a seventh year, remember?"

"Well, _yes_, but your marks certainly aren't much…"

"I know what they teach us, Hermione, I just don't care for tests and essays," George told her with a conspiratorial wink. "If the practical exam was all that mattered, Fred and I would be top students. Essays are just a waste of our time, so we don't do them. Besides, it's not like the seventh year matters… we're not even going to finish the year…" He suddenly trailed off, shooting a sheepish look at Fred's back. "In conclusion, essays are boring."

"Are you not planning on finishing year seven?" Hermione demanded, scandalized.

Fred sauntered up to the duo, giving Hermione a wink. "'Course we are, m'dear. Come along now, George, things to do, butterbeers to… er… drink…" As the twins made a hasty exit to the opposite side of the table, Hermione merely sat there, watching them with a puzzled expression on her face. They grew stranger each passing day.

Harry suddenly slid in beside her, a pleased grin on his face. "Well, shall we start the meeting now?"

"Frog!" Tristan agreed happily.

"Who invited him?" Ron demanded in annoyance. Ginny blushed.

"I thought he was cute!" she muttered defensively. "Like a plushie."

"_Right_," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "Isn't he a first year? Shouldn't he be back at school?"

"Yellow," Tristan explained, and Harry gave it up as a bad job.

"Right, on to business then. Er… Hermione?"

The brunette blinked. "Hmm? Oh! Well, first of all, thank you for coming, everyone…" She paused to nervously clear her throat, slightly unnerved by the 28 faces staring silently at her. "As you may or may not know, we're here to discuss the possibility of forming a club to practice Defense Against the Dark Arts. Because, you know, Umbridge certainly isn't about to teach us anything useful-" (Here, here! Ernie cheered, and Hermione suddenly seemed more confident) "-and yes, well, I thought perhaps we ought to learn the material _ourselves_, without teacher assistance."

"I can't see why Dumbledore would give us such a mediocre teacher at such a pivotal point in our education!" Anthony Goldstein exclaimed, and was met with a chorus of agreement from the surrounding students.

"Exactly!" Hermione said happily. "Which is why I propose we start a sort of DADA-practice group, with Harry as our teacher, of course."

Immediately all 28 pairs of eyes swiveled to Harry, who flushed under the scrutiny. By the eagerness of their expressions, Harry realized why most of them were really here. "Hermione!" he whispered furiously. He should have known better! Of course all these people were so interested in this meeting; they wanted to hear things from his point of view!

.:That's what I was _trying_ to tell you:. Decimare said smugly from his position on Harry's finger.

"You never mentioned anything of the sort!" he thought sharply.

.:What kind of teacher would I be if I told you everything? You've got to figure things out for yourself!:. the snake replied self-righteously.

"Next time, _tell me_!" Harry mentally shouted.

.:Well, if you're going to be rude…:. Decimare hissed angrily before retreating from Harry's mind. Harry nearly tore his hair out in frustration. _Argh! Stupid, useless snake!_

Up at the bar, the grizzled old barman smiled for some reason, a very familiar twinkle in his deep blue eyes.

Meanwhile, a rather irritating Hufflepuff boy was mouthing off in Harry's general direction. "What qualifies Potter to be our teacher? I mean, sure, they claim he's done all sorts of terrific things, but I bet that's all a load of baloney."

"Name, kid?" Fred inquired pleasantly. The boy stared at the redhead.

"Er… Zacharias Smith. What's it to you, Weasley?"

"I once had a neighbor named Zacharias," George reminisced. "I swear, you look just like him."

"Nice kid," Fred agreed. Then both turned on Zacharias with a feral gleam in their eyes. "Then, one day, he had the nerve to be an irritating prat towards our dear friend."

"We invited him to step inside a conveniently located nearby cave with us," George said mysteriously. "And you'll never guess what happened next…"

"He was never seen again!" the twins chorused loudly, spooking about half the gathered students. Smith, however, didn't seem fazed in the least.

"And is that supposed to scare me?" he asked archly.

Fred grinned evilly. "No, it isn't. What will scare you, however, is the knowledge that as much as we scrubbed and scrubbed, we could never get the huge, crimson blood-stains out of our robes."

That sent the poor Hufflepuff reeling backwards in terror. Harry didn't blame him. He'd be scared to death if the twins started threatening him. Or, in this case, telling a perfectly unrelated story that just happened to feature a character with his exact name, his exact looks, and who happened to die a horrible, grizzly death.

Regaining his composure, Zacharias shot a glare at the twins, but stayed silent, to which they exchanged triumphant grins. Shaking his head, Harry turned his attention back to the rest of the people sitting round the table.

"What qualifies me?" Harry asked rhetorically. "Let me explain this, because I'm only going to say it once. If you want a full, detailed account of my past exploits, forget it. I've already said my piece last year, and no clarification is necessary. I'm here for the purpose of running a Defense Against the Dark Arts club, and if you don't want me as your teacher, then you can leave right now!"

The table was silent.

Ernie MacMillan eventually broke the silence. "I don't know about you all, but I want to pass my OWL, and if this is the only way to do it… sorry to tell you, Potter, but I'm not budging. I'm part of your little club, whether you like it or not!"

Harry bit back a sigh of relief. All around him, conversation suddenly broke out, the previous uncomfortable silence thankfully forgotten.

"Is it true you killed a basilisk?" someone called out.

"Sure did," Harry agreed with a grin. "Nasty blighter he was, too."

"I've seen Godric Gryffindor's sword up in Dumbledore's office. They say you pulled it out of the Sorting Hat. Is that true?" Colin Creevey asked in awe.

"What were you in for?" Fred asked in interest.

Colin blushed. "Inappropriate subject matter for my photographs. Can I help it if I'm quite the lady's man? Girls practically begged me to snap a picture of them!"

"It's true enough, I pulled out Gryffindor's sword," Harry agreed. "Ernie, did you hear that? Undeniable proof I'm not the heir of Slytherin!"

Ernie flushed. "Geez, a guy makes _one_ mistake, and he gets bugged about it for the rest of his life…"

As Harry happily chatted away with his newfound circle of friends, denying or approving the wild tales they spun concerning his adventures at Hogwarts, Hermione surveyed the situation with pleasure. Everything had gone perfectly – maybe not quite the way she'd planned it – and now they could proceed to the planning stage of the meeting… provided she ever got their attention again.

"Excuse me… er… could I have the floor for a minute? Please?" Hermione said this rather loudly, but no one noticed, too busy bonding, or whatever it was they were doing. Most suddenly, George appeared out of thin air beside her, surveying the scene with much amusement, the usual twinkle in his sparkling blue eyes.

"You're going to have to be more forceful than that if you want their attention," he said helpfully. "You just aren't going about it right, baby. Being forceful is a man's job."

"Baby? Am I too weak and pathetic for you?" Hermione demanded incredulously. "Well, Mister Macho Male, if you're so clever, why don't _you_ get their attention?"

"Maybe I will!" George snapped back. "Oy! Listen up, children!"

Everyone completely ignored him.

"Ha!" Hermione exclaimed. "Not so tough now, are we, George _baby_?"

As could be expected, at that exact moment a dead silence hit the table, leaving everyone staring at Hermione and George in shock. George, looking rather pleased with himself, swept back around the table to join his twin, who gave the flustered girl a saucy wink. What happened next, however, nobody had seen coming.

Ron was staring at Hermione in utmost horror. "Baby? _BABY_? Is that some sort of cute little nickname for him?! You… George… I… ARGH!" And with that articulate speech, Ron stormed out of the Hogs Head, leaving 28 gaping students behind him.

Harry blinked. Once again, it would be up to him to keep the peace.

"France!" Tristan exclaimed.

Harry chuckled inwardly. Maybe he could be an ambassador between England France or something… he certainly had the peacemaking skills needed! But back to the situation at hand…

"Hermione, sit down," Harry ordered. "Everyone else, stop gaping at her like dead fish. And Fred, George… I don't even _want_ to know. Now, Hermione, how are we feeling? Any homicidal tendencies?"

Hermione sighed deeply and plastered a bright smile on her face to cover her confusion. What on earth was up with Ron? And why were the twins so… aggravating? Did they exist solely to annoy her beyond human tolerance?

"Er… Hermione?" Harry asked tentatively.

She blinked. "What? Oh! Well, ignoring the fact that Ron has decided to be a complete prat and leave for no logical reason, we should probably decide a meeting time for the club."

"Sounds good to me," Susan Bones agreed.

"It can't conflict with our Quidditch practices," Angelina Johnson warned.

"Nor ours," Cho Chang added, flashing Harry a beautiful smile, which he attempted to return. The butterflies in his stomach indicated he clearly wasn't over the Chinese beauty, despite the fact he'd witnessed her boyfriend's murder. Life was funny like that.

"I'm sure we can work something out," Hermione agreed impatiently, taking notes on a scrap of parchment, already back to her normal self. Harry, seeing no further reason to stay, said a quick goodbye, waved to Ginny, attempted another failed smile at Cho, and headed towards the door in search of Ron. Behind him, the group continued their planning in earnest.

Harry was stopped, however, before he could get to the door, by the bartender, who dragged him off up the rickety staircase before he could protest. The thought crossed his mind that he was being kidnapped, which Decimare immediately picked up on.

.:Fight back!:. Decimare urged. .:The man might be a Death Eater! Kick his sorry butt!:.

Harry didn't even bother to inquire where the snake had picked up that particular phrase from, too focused on his next action as the old man dragged him up the staircase. What did he value more? His life, or the old man's? If he was a Death Eater…

At the top of the stairs, the man leaned towards Harry with an eerie, somewhat scary look in his face. "I've been waiting for the chance to get you alone, Potter…"

That was all the provocation Harry needed. With all his (limited, yes, but still potent) training in mind, Harry reached out a hand and jabbed at the man's throat, sending him reeling backwards, before spinning around and kicking out the man's legs from under him. As the barkeeper fell to the floor with a muffled "_oomph_", Harry, taking no chances, summoned the man's wand, and within five seconds had the man completely immobilized and helpless on the floor.

"Don't make any sudden moves, Death Eater, and I may spare your life," Harry told the old man, who looked up at him with eyes absolutely devoid of terror or fear. Eyes, twinkling blue eyes, that were rather familiar to Harry for some reason… extremely familiar…

"Professor Dumbledore?" Harry asked in shock, jumping backwards and helping the old man to his feet. Handing him his wand, Harry winced. "I thought I was being kidnapped! I'm terribly sorry that I…" but he trailed off, for at that moment 'Professor Dumbledore' had summoned _his_ wand and pressed his own wand against Harry's throat.

.:What am I going to do with you?:. Decimare moaned.

"What makes you think I'm Professor Dumbledore?" the man demanded, voice about ten times stronger than it had been before. Power radiated from the man that had seemed so weary and bedraggled not a moment ago.

"Your… your eyes…" Harry stammered, completely taken aback. Had he made a mistake? Was the man a Death Eater after all?

.:Put your stellar observational skills to the test, Master:. Decimare groaned. .:I'm sure you can come up with a totally inaccurate answer, as you seem to be so fond of doing these days:.

"My _eyes_?" the fake-Dumbledore yelled. "Haven't you ever heard of Polyjuice potion, boy? That stuff can easily change eye color! Good Lord, child, they told me you were intelligent!"

As Harry's terrified mind reeled, he began to suspect that something was amiss. The man wasn't attacking him, but lecturing him. Was that something Death Eaters typically did?

"Er…"

"Lost for words, are you?" the man bellowed, shaking his head. "Albus spoke so very highly of you…"

Harry could now declare with all sincerity that he had _no _idea of what to think any more.

The man sighed. "Come with me. Move it, boy, I said _come_!"

Wincing, Harry dutifully followed the old man into a nearby room. Once the door was closed, the man held out his wrist to Harry, who examined it, rather puzzled. And then he saw it. Tattooed onto the man's wrist was a faint, yet recognizable phoenix, exactly the same as the ones he'd seen on Sirius, James, and Remus. _So he isn't a Death Eater after all._

"Of course I'm not! Do you think Albus would let a Death Eater run a shop in Hogsmeade? You underestimate him!"

Harry blinked. Had he said his thoughts out loud?

"'Course you didn't," the man said with a laugh.

Harry was now officially terrified. Taking a brave stance and fingering Decimare's ring, Harry said boldly, "I don't know who you are, or what you want, but-"

The man applauded. "There's some of that famous backbone Albus told me about!"

"Er… you know Professor Dumbledore?"

"'Course I do! I'm his brother, aren't I?" the man bellowed, and Harry realized with a jolt that _that_ was where he'd recognized the man's eyes from. Only someone related to Dumbledore could have such mysterious yet cheerful eyes.

"Aberforth, right?" Harry asked tentatively, gaining confidence.

"That's correct," Aberforth Dumbledore nodded. "The crazy, illiterate brother of Albus Dumbledore, convicted for practicing inappropriate charms on a goat, with a bizarre fetish for French mint truffles. I suppose you've heard of me?"

"A bit," Harry mumbled. "Er… can I have my wand back now?"

"No," the man replied with a pleasant smile.

Harry was taken aback. "Oh. Alright then."

"Do you know why?" he pressed.

"Er… not exactly…"

Aberforth shook his head. "Teenagers. Think they know everything. Tell me then, boy, if you were to be attacked by, say, Minerva McGonagall, would you immediately surrender your wand to her?"

"Of course not!" Harry exclaimed. "She's attacking me, isn't she? It's probably a Death Eater in disguise!"

Aberforth stared at him.

Realization dawned. "Oh…"

"Get it yet, Potter? You thought I was your Headmaster, and surrendered without even putting up a fight. I attacked you, and you disarmed me, leaving you with the upper hand, but at the first sign of a familiar face you lost the advantage! Why would your Headmaster attack you? Anyone who attacks you could be a Death Eater!"

"But what if they weren't, and they had a reason for attacking me?" Harry wondered.

"Are you willing to bet your life on such a small chance?" Aberforth bellowed. "You're _Harry Potter_, lad! You're the most important person on the Light side, yet you have no concern for your own safety! You can't trust anyone, Potter! How do you know they aren't in disguise, or turned traitor? You could be dead in a heartbeat!"

"Isn't that being a bit paranoid?" Harry asked tentatively.

"Do you want to die?" Aberforth demanded.

"No," Harry replied, slowly understanding the man's words and logic. "But if your words are true, how do I know I can even trust you?"

The man smiled eerily. "You don't. Isn't life wonderful?" Noting Harry's depressed expression, he clapped a hand on his shoulder and handed back his wand. "Here y'are, lad. You won't die this day, I'm afraid."

Accepting the wand, Harry watched the man in puzzlement. "Why are you telling me all these things? They seem rather… opposite of what the Headmaster keeps saying. He's always going on about trusting adults, not automatically assuming they're Death Eaters until proven otherwise."

The man laughed airily. "What Albus doesn't know won't hurt him, lad. Now, the real question is, what are you going to do with the advice I've given you?"

Silence blanketed the room.

Finally, Harry said tentatively, "Er… take it to heart, I suppose. I mean, it makes a lot of sense, which is more than I can say for some of the stuff I've been taught over the past couple of years. But I can't possibly spend my whole life suspecting everyone I know of being Death Eaters!"

"Of course you can't," Aberforth agreed. "Not yet, anyway. Not without proper instruction."

Harry stifled a laugh. He knew what was coming next. "And I suppose you'd love to give me proper instruction."

.:You should be glad that so many people are interested enough in your survival to teach you:. Decimare scolded.

'Shut up,' Harry returned pleasantly.

Aberforth smacked him upside the head. "Don't get cheeky with me, boy! I'm not my brother! He sees you as a child who needs protecting – I see a young man who's trying to find his own place in the world, who thinks he can take care of himself. And maybe he can. I don't know. But I do know that you need serious help, and I know that I can help you. Are you willing to learn from me, Potter?"

.:This man is wise:. Decimare told Harry seriously. .:He can help you nearly as much as I can. I can teach you how to fight, master, but he can teach you how to live to fight another day. Accept his help:.

'I don't know…" Harry mumbled.

Decimare gave an amused hiss. .:You make it sound like that wasn't a direct order, Master:.

Miffed, Harry nevertheless trusted his companion's advice. "I would be honored to learn from you, sir."

Aberforth cackled. "Come by next Saturday, Potter, and I'll make you regret having ever decided to take me up on my offer. See you in a week."

Aberforth swept out of the room.

Harry blinked. "Does that mean he wants me to come?"

.:Course it does:. Decimare sniffed. .:He's trying to frighten you, Master, to see if you have the guts to show up next weekend. Which you _do_, incidentally:.

"Right," Harry agreed absently, not being able to help but think that perhaps he'd gotten in over his head this time.

Decimare laughed. .:You were in over your head the moment you were born, Master:.

Harry sighed. 'Don't I know it.'

Harry discovered Ron standing in front of an ornate fountain in the Main Square, shoulders visibly tense. Moving up silently beside his friend, Harry tapped the redhead on the shoulder and demanded without preamble, "What's wrong?"

Ron laughed a bit more loudly than necessary. "What's wrong? Nothing's wrong. Why would anything be wrong?"

"I've never seen you storm out in such a huff like you did back at the Hogs Head," Harry replied, eyebrows shooting skyward. He was fairly sure he knew why Ron was behaving so strangely, but wasn't certain.

.:The boy is clearly head over heels for your muggle-born friend:. Decimare hissed irritably. .:Tell him to either confess, or get over it, so that we can get back to Hogwarts. I have large, fluffy pillow with my name on it:.

"You're an inanimate object, you can't claim things," Harry reminded him tiredly. He didn't have the patience for this.

"I didn't storm out," Ron replied sullenly. "I just… wanted some air."

_Uh huh._ "So you have no desire to kill George, then?"

Ron's eyes clouded over at the mention of his brother, a savage grin twisting his features. "Kill? Of course not. Injure, brutally maim? Definitely. I will break his bones and crush his skull! Pain… lots of pain… excruciatingly painful pain… heh heh heh…"

"Okay," Harry said hastily. "Stop it, Ron. You're seriously scaring me now." Ron growled, still envisioning the torture of George Weasley. "Why are you so mad at George, anyway? You'd have no reason to be… unless you fancy Hermione."

Ron blinked, the rage draining from his features. "I do _not_ fancy Hermione!"

"Yeah, your actions really prove _that_," Harry replied sarcastically.

The redhead sighed, looking like a lost puppy as he stared pitifully into the sparkling clear water of the fountain. "I don't fancy Hermione… do I? Do I, Harry?"

Harry sighed, patting Ron's back sympathetically. "I don't know, mate, only you can tell that. Why don't you think it over, and for God's sake stop freaking out when any male goes near her. She's allowed to do whatever she wants. Besides, I don't think George is interested in her in that way."

"You don't?" Ron asked hopefully, and Harry couldn't help but laugh.

"It wouldn't work between them, trust me. Listen, let's head back, okay? They're serving apple pie for dinner, and I'm sure you don't want to miss that."

"No," Ron replied, still looking a little lost. "I wouldn't want to miss that."

"Let's go," Harry said with a sigh.

"Well, that was exhausting," Harry remarked to Decimare under his breath, as he snuck along a passageway that led to the disused girl's lavatory, which in turn housed the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

.:You needn't tell me, Master:. the snake hissed dryly. .:I learned long ago to leave tangled love affairs alone. They always lead to trouble:.

"Sure they do," Harry agreed absently, giving the hallway a cursory once-over before darting into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. He could have sworn he'd seen a blinking red light in the corner of the corridor, but dismissed it as paranoia.

"_Open_," Harry hissed at the ornately carved sink, which slowly sank into the floor to reveal a dark tunnel leading deep into the ground. The only difference this time was that the tunnel was clean and polished, and smelled faintly of roses, rather than that disgusting dead animal stench it had sported for so many centuries.

Harry was indeed proud of his new-and-improved Chamber of Secrets – well, the entrance and main hall, really, since he hadn't yet ventured into the numerous side passages branching out from the Chamber. Following a thorough cleaning of every inch of the place, Harry had placed magical glowing green orbs all along the entrance pathway, and placed a reverse gravity charm on the exit tunnel (a different tunnel from the entrance tunnel, which led to the abandoned stall in Myrtle's bathroom rather than the sink). For the finishing touch, Harry spent a whole week creating a magnificent grand staircase at the entrance of the Chamber, made entirely of white marble and decorated with intricate serpent carvings (Harry was getting rather fond of snakes by now). Professor McGonagall would have been so proud of him – it was a truly magnificent creation, and Harry found himself getting rather attached to it.

It never occurred to him that conjuring on that level would have been nearly impossible for most fully grown wizards. Which was probably why Decimare refrained from mentioning it.

Suppressing a whoop of delight as he shot down the twisting tunnel, Harry emerged with a whoosh into the "entrance hall", now entirely devoid of rat and animal bones. Proceeding along the brightly lit and entirely less scary hallway, Harry passed through the snakeskin room (cleared of rocks and debris), a long hallway, and the glittering snake-encrusted vault door, to finally emerge into the Chamber of Secrets. Gliding down the ornate staircase, Harry couldn't help but feel like the King of his own private castle.

.:Of course, you realize that when Dumbledore finds out what you've done down here, he'll probably have to expel you:. Decimare snapped as he morphed back into sword form.

"Oh, stop being such a wet blanket," Harry scolded him, tired of communicating telepathically all the time. It wasn't like there was anyone down here to ask him why he was apparently talking to himself. "Besides, how am I breaking school rules? I'm still on school property, am I not? It's not like this place is off-limits."

.:Firstly, you're breaking curfew, and secondly, I don't believe the Headmaster ever suspected, even in his wildest dreams, that someone would willingly venture into the Chamber of Secrets:.

Harry grinned. "Yeah, well, I suppose he'll just be surprised, now won't he? Come on, Decimare, I've got at least three more hours in me before I fall asleep standing. Let's get training."

The snake yawned in his hand. .:You know the spell, Master. Cast it whenever you like so we can begin:.

Raising his wand, Harry flicked the holly rod in a complicated series of swishes, mind devoted solely to the conjuring of a "shadow ally" to practice with, saying firmly, "_Umbra Socius_!" An eerie black mist formed around Harry's wand, and with a heart-wrenching shriek the mist and shadow coalesced into a dark figure, which fell onto the ground silently as Harry lowered his wand.

Unbeknownst to Harry, this was actually a mild form of Necromancy, which was most definitely illegal in just about every country on Earth. Which, again, was probably why Decimare refrained from mentioning it.

"_Ascendo_," Harry ordered the shadow, which rose to its feet in response. The annoying part about the _Umbra Socius_ spell was that he could only give the shadow orders in Latin, and his Latin was pretty much non-existent. He'd gotten a few words worked out over the last two weeks, though.

Drawing Decimare from its sheath, Harry moved into the ready position and announced, "_Aequus adorior_" – roughly translated to "attack easily". As the two began an intricate dance, swords flashing in the green glow of the Chamber, Decimare hissed instructions in Harry's now well-attuned ear.

.:It's leaning heavily on it's left side, so go for the right side… not that right, your other right. I mean, _it's_ right, you… oh, forget it. You'd think a fifteen year old would know his right from his left. You'll want to watch out for the shadow's uppercut, as it's particularly… _oooh_, that must have hurt…:.

The shadow wasn't using a real sword, naturally, but it's weapon was made of some sort of corporeal substance that made quite a nasty sting on impact. Growling, Harry readjusted his grip on Decimare and dived in again, this time paying much more attention to Decimare's sarcastic-yet-helpful instructions.

An hour later, Harry was officially exhausted, even though he'd figured he'd had two more hours in him. As the shadow delivered a jolting blow to his side, Harry hastily ordered, "_Conquiesco! Abeo_!" Rough translation – Stop! Die! Alright, it was a tad violent, but Harry couldn't think of anything else. Die would have to do.

The shadow froze, simply dissolving away into the surrounding air. Harry tentatively prodded his aching side, trying to ignore Decimare's taunts.

.:I _told_ you it had a swift uppercut, but did you listen to me? No! Who would listen to a thousand-year-old sword with more fighting experience than you can ever even dream of having!:.

"I tried my best," Harry snapped, limping up the staircase towards the exit tunnel. "Oh, I'd like to see _you_ do better. Oh yeah, I forgot. You can't, because you're a bloody _sword_!"

.:Laugh it up, Master:. Decimare hissed. .:One day you'll wish you'd listened to me. In fact, your last words will be 'I wish I'd listened to the wise and mighty Decimare':.

"Oh, I _highly_ doubt that," Harry replied, climbing into the tube and swooping down it… or up it, depending on how you viewed the reverse-gravity spell. Shooting out the other end, Harry climbed upright, opened the stall door, and closed up both entrances with a flick of his wrist.

.:One day, you'll see. You'll all see:. Decimare cackled.

"Stop it, you're scaring me," Harry muttered, slipping out of the bathroom and sneaking stealthily back up to Gryffindor tower. Ahhh… how he longed for his comfy mattress and fluffy pillows…

.:Of course I'm scaring you, Master, it's my job. Although I would love to see Voldemort's reaction to your last thought there. He probably doesn't even know what fluffy and comfy mean:.

"You'd be surprised," Harry muttered. "In one of my visions, Voldemort was wearing a pair of fluffy pink rabbit slippers. G'night."

Decimare's tiny eyes blinked in horror. .:You _are_ joking, right? _Please_ tell me you're joking! Ohhh… now I'm never going to get any sleep…:.


	25. Educational Decree Number 24

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Twenty Five – Educational Decree Number 24

"I'm going to kill her. I'm going to march straight up to her office and _murder Dolores Umbridge_!" Harry stormed wildly as he paced back and forth in front of the Gryffindor Common Room Message Board. Pasted on the board in big, bold letters were the words:

_Educational Decree Number 24_

_No student organizations, societies, teams, groups, or clubs may exist without knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts._

_Signed: Dolores Jane Umbridge, High Inquisitor_

Upon seeing this sign on Monday morning, Harry had completely lost it, and had been screaming and pacing the room ever since. The other occupants of the room were equally horrified, but not quite as vocal about it as Harry was.

"Do you think someone ratted out on us?" Ron asked quietly as he levitated a table out of Harry's way so he wouldn't blow it up, or do something equally destructive.

"Impossible," Hermione replied quietly, and Ginny nodded her head in agreement.

"You're so naive," Ron scoffed. "You think that just because you are, everyone else will be honest and trustworthy and nice and pretty and…"

Ginny smacked him upside the head before he said something he'd regret. Hermione eyed him strangely, but pretended she hadn't heard the latter part of his speech.

"It's impossible," she repeated, "because I cast a jinx on the paper I had everyone sign on Saturday to indicate they wanted to join the club."

"What paper?" Ron demanded.

Hermione frowned. "The one you didn't sign, because you _stormed out halfway through the meeting! _You _still_ won't tell me what on _earth_ you were thinking, Ronald, and I must say I'm am getting _extremely irritated_-"

She was silenced by Ginny's hand clamped over her mouth. The petite redhead glared at the duo, before removing her hand and gesturing to Harry, who was still raging on about the brutal murder of Professor Umbridge. "We're all uptight about this new decree, you two, but that's no reason to snap at each other. Hermione, at _least_ wait until Ron does some _really_ stupid, blundering, insulting thing before you yell at him, alright? And Ron, control your hormonal impulses, please."

"What hormonal impulses?" Ron sulked, but didn't pursue the argument.

Harry, meanwhile, was having a furious discussion with Decimare, who was irritating the poor boy to no end.

.:I _told_ you someone was eavesdropping on Saturday:. Decimare said smugly. .:But did you listen to me? _No_:.

'How was I supposed to know we were being listened to?' Harry demanded furiously. 'What was I supposed to do? Stupefy everyone in the bar so they couldn't hear us? I'd be arrested for assault!'

.:I shall not even answer that question, Master:. Decimare said pompously. .:You could have taken precautions if you wanted to. But _no_, you didn't, because you foolishly believe that _every single person in the world is perfectly friendly and trustworthy_!:.

'Oww,' Harry winced. 'You don't have to yell, you idiot, I get the picture! It's like Mr. Aberforth said – don't trust anyone.'

.:Oh, sure, you'll listen to a batty old man rather than your faithful companion…:. Decimare grumbled.

"Faithful companion?!" Harry shouted. "Some help you are! Never telling me anything, assuming that I'll somehow blunder my way through obstacles, and then criticizing the ways I do so! You're faithful, alright, as useful as a _stomach ache_!"

Complete silence blanketed the common room. Exchanging mildly terrified glances, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione eyed Harry uneasily. He winced.

"I said that out loud, didn't I?" he muttered.

Ginny nodded wordlessly.

"Er… do you have a stomach ache, Harry?" Ron asked tentatively, clearly unsure of what to make of his friend's outburst.

Harry shook his head in exasperation. "Do I _look_ like I have a stomach ache, Ron? If I want to yell random thoughts out loud, then _by God I will_-"

A sudden goose cut him off mid-speech. Seriously. A rather large-ish, extremely flustered goose suddenly appeared in Harry's mouth, choking him and effectively cutting off his shouting spree. Yanking the bird out in shock, Harry spun around to see who on earth would do something so incredibly… weird.

"Watch it!" Sirius exclaimed, grabbing the bird before it tumbled to the floor. "You'll kill poor Gunther!"

Harry stared at him in disbelief. "Please tell me you're joking. You did _not_ just conjure a goose, name it, and choke me with it."

"You deserved it, young man," Sirius snapped. "And I didn't conjure it; Gunther is a dear friend of mine."

"Deserved it?" Harry repeated incredulously. "I deserved to almost die of goose asphyxiation? How do you figure that?"

"Listen to yourself!" Sirius exclaimed. "You've spent the whole morning yelling and complaining, and you're driving your friends up the wall!"

"How would _you_ know?" Harry demanded. "You weren't in the common room this morning."

"That is beside the point," Sirius snapped. "The point is that Umbridge got one up on you, and you're angry that she outsmarted you. Grow up and move on, Harry! Stop aggravating your friends, and turn your anger into something productive! At least come up with a proper revenge for her eavesdropping on your secret meeting at the Hogs Head… er, I mean…"

"You know we had a meeting?" Hermione demanded, more annoyed than surprised. "How do you know about it?"

Sirius snorted. "Same way Umbridge does, Hermione. Someone's been tailing Harry every time he's left Hogwarts ground – you remember the veiled witch at the corner table? That was Mundungus Fletcher. He was banned from the pub for life – he actually dresses as a witch a lot these days. Rather disturbing, really…"

"So one of those people ratted us out to Umbridge?" Ginny asked.

"Seems so," Sirius agreed. "You're going to have a hell of a time getting around her latest decree, I might add."

"I guess the secret club's off," Harry said gloomily, feeling completely depressed, half from Umbridge's always being one step ahead of him, and half because he'd upset his friends. "Ow!"

Sirius smacked him lightly across the side of the head once more for good measure. "What's up with you, kid? There's no way this sudden depression of yours is natural. When was the last time you had a good night's sleep?"

Harry blinked. "Er… a _good_ night's sleep? Maybe… two weeks ago?"

Everyone cringed.

"Right," Sirius decided. "Harry, you are in no way your usual, cheerful self, and that is clearly the result of lack of sleep. I therefore sentence you to an entire week of proper sleeping. That means in bed by eight o'clock."

Harry was horrified. "But Sirius-"

"No buts," he interjected sternly. "You're driving everyone up the wall, Harry. A growing boy needs sleep, and as your guardian I intend to see that you get it. And don't even think of appealing to James for help, because he's gone."

"Gone?" Harry asked in alarm. "Where is he?"

Sirius looked around shiftily. "No place."

"What's he doing?"

"Nothing."

"_Sirius…_"

"Sorry to tell you, Harry, but Sirius is right," Ginny admitted. "You need sleep."

"Four against one, mate," Ron agreed. "In bed by eight."

"Some friends you all are," Harry grumped in defeat, turning and trudging out of the common room.

"Harry, be careful!" Hermione whispered as she grabbed Harry's hand to prevent him from dropping a crushed rat skull into his completed sleeping potion. "Rat skulls mixed with sleeping potions have dangerous, generally explosive side effects. With such a powerful sleeping potion, you could blow up the entire school!"

"Really?" Harry replied absently, eyes focused intently on two conversing figures on the other side of the dark potions classroom. "What do you think they're saying?"

Snape and Umbridge continued to converse in low tones, Umbridge marking things occasionally on a piece of parchment – another inspection, much to Harry's delight. He was just waiting for one of the two to do something to irritate the other, at which point sparks would fly, and Harry could watch his two most hated teachers battle it out.

.:Keep dreaming:. Decimare said.

'Shut up,' Harry replied, and promptly went back to mentally willing the two to attack each other.

"Umbridge wants Snape's support, Harry, she's not about to aggravate or attack him," Hermione told him for the umpteenth time as she stirred her potion. Ron probably would have interjected something in Harry's defense at this point, but he was occupied with stopping Neville from destroying the classroom in a monstrous explosion. He was having difficulty with this, as he knew just as much about potions as Neville did. Which was to say, none at all. The two just weren't cut out for potion making.

"So how long have you been teaching here at Hogwarts?" Umbridge asked Snape sweetly, twirling a short, stubby quill between her short, stubby fingers.

"Fourteen years."

She smiled cunningly. "I understand you've been applying for the Defense professor position for much of that time, only to be refused every year by our esteemed Headmaster. Why do you believed that is?"

"You'll have to ask the Headmaster. He seems to think that-"

But what Dumbledore thought remained a mystery, for at that exact instant James Potter, Ministry Auror, Self-proclaimed Ruler of All, and All Around Good Guy, appeared in between the two with a pop, clutching in his hand a large, fuzzy pink object.

"Success!" he bellowed, before taking note of his surroundings and realizing that this was not, in fact, his proper destination. Attempting a nonchalant wave, James tucked the fuzzy pink object into his pocket and made a hasty departure, 'accidentally' knocking Snape flat on his back as he did so.

Scrambling to his feet with narrowed eyes, Snape was clearly considering going after James and forcing an explanation out of him, before apparently hitting upon a better way to get back at him. "Mister Potter, detention."

Harry gaped at him. "Why?"

"For questioning me," Snape retorted smugly, his smirk widening when Umbridge grinned evilly and scribbled down pleased comments onto his inspection report.

Storming out of class ten minutes later, Harry did his best to control his fury and not viciously attack the next person to come in his line of sight. Beside him, Hermione and Ron offered their sympathies, but they didn't bother to sound too sincere, as Harry was in such a bad mood he wouldn't be able to tell either way.

"What did I do to deserve this?" Harry demanded as he stalked up a staircase leading to the Entrance Hall. "First I get a goose shoved down my throat, get an eight o'clock curfew, and discover my father _left_ for no reason, and then find out that he didn't actually leave, but rather acquired a fuzzy pink thing that allows him to teleport into our potions classroom! Which isn't even _possible_, might I add! And now I get a detention because Snape is a biased, bigoted, prejudiced, obnoxious git!"

"Get used to it," Hermione offered unsympathetically, more than a little annoyed at Harry's constant complaining. "You're a teenager, meaning you are stubborn, insecure, and angst-ridden. I'm surprised you haven't started sobbing yet about your mismatched socks."

"My socks are not mismatched," Harry grumbled. He looked down. They were. Damn.

That evening, after finding out Trelawney was on probation because Umbridge genuinely hated her, Harry and his friends were settled safely in bed, and thus out of the way for James and Sirius, who had a very special party planned that could have no witnesses. This event was not so much a party, actually, but more like a celebration of the completion of stage one of Operation Sentinel.

"Ready?" Sirius said.

"Ready," James confirmed.

The two men were standing in an old stone doorway, facing into a small, darkened room which housed the creation they'd spent the last month perfecting. Shaking in anticipation, James slowly raised his wand and whispered, "Lumos!"

The room lit up with light, and James and Sirius gazed with pride upon their finished masterpiece. What was this masterpiece? It actually rather resembled a muggle security guard's booth, complete with video screens and control panels. The purpose of this magically run monstrosity? To monitor the halls of Hogwarts in order to ensure the safety of both the students and the school itself.

Currently all the system could do was monitor the halls, via the magically tweaked video cameras hidden around the school, but Sirius intended to install a weapons system as soon as he received his contraband magical submachine guns from the German black market dealer. He was keeping the man's pet goose Gunther as a hostage until the guns were delivered.

The creation of this room, and the fact that they could now see everything going on in the entire school, led to the question of why Dumbledore would allow such an invasion of privacy, even if it meant more safety for the students. The answer, of course, was that Dumbledore had no idea the room, called "Sentinel", was being built, just as he had no idea Harry had renovated the dreaded Chamber of Secrets and now had tea down there with his evil serpentine sword on Sunday afternoons.

His complete lack of knowledge was not his fault, however. Sirius and James, after all, were Marauders, and if there was one thing they knew how to do, it was accomplishing things without getting caught. In this case, Remus had discovered in their sixth year that Dumbledore knew what was happening around the school because the figures in all the portraits reported to him at the end of each day everything they'd seen. This had been easily solved, of course, by removing any nearby paintings whilst installing video cameras or building the Sentinel room - storing them in a large, black, coffin-sized box Sirius had bought for a pound at a garage sale - until the installation was complete.

Needless to say, they were extremely proud of themselves for breaking so many rules and federal laws without getting caught. And the greatest part was, should they indeed be found out, they could claim it "top secret" Ministry business – they _were_ Aurors, after all.

Plopping down on one of the two padded swivel chairs, James conjured a bottle of Firewhiskey, took a swig, and then tossed it to Sirius with a grin. "A toast to us!"

"To us!" Sirius agreed.

"Marauders forever!"

Sirius cackled. "Hogwarts won't know what hit them. I almost feel sorry for how out of the loop they are."

Taking another swig, James smirked. "I'd feel more sorry for the Death Eaters, Padfoot. They're the ones who're going to have to deal with Sentinel."

Sirius grinned. "Let's give this baby a test run. Whaddya say, Prongs?"

"Sounds like a plan."

James tapped a few buttons, and the massive magical monstrosity whirred into life. Manipulating the controls expertly, the Auror picked a random camera and zoomed in to see what the tiny figure on the screen was up to.

"Look at this bloke!" James exclaimed, jabbing a finger at a screen in the far right corner. "He's got not one, not two, but _three_ girls in that broom closet with him! How'd he manage _that_?"

"Oy!" Sirius yelped in shock. "That's the Hufflepuff kid that's been following Harry around!"

"Who?" James asked.

"The monkey slave kid," Sirius elaborated.

"Oh yeah! Tristan! Wait, I thought he was a first year. Why on earth are three sixth years attracted to an eleven year old?" James pondered.

Sirius shrugged. "Maybe they're looking for a good time, and he's the only boy they could find."

"Still!" James snapped in righteous outrage. "The kid's ten! Those girls are insulting themselves! I can't even imagine snogging a little girl… that would just be disgusting!"

"And pedophilia," Sirius offered helpfully.

"We should report him," James sniffed. "We've done some wrong things, Padfoot, but this is just… wrong! They're probably scarring that kid for life…" He was halted in his rant by Sirius madly suppressing a cackle. "What?"

"Take a look at the screen, genius."

Scrutinizing the screen, James watched in fascination as the underage boy and his three companions tumbled out of the closet giggling hysterically, all four of them with their hair in curlers and wearing pink bathrobes.

"Um…"

"It would seem they were having an impromptu slumber party," Sirius said slowly. "In a closet. Although why teenage girls would invite a ten year old boy, I don't know…"

"What else does this kid do?" James demanded. "He walks around permanently high on life, he sneaks into Hogsmeade as a first year student, he joins secret clubs he isn't even supposed to know about, plus he holds slumber parties with teenage girls in abandoned broom closets. What does any of that gain him?"

"Maybe he's just a little touched in the head," Sirius suggested.

James sighed. "That must be it. And I was hoping for something to report to Dumbledore, too! Oh well, we can always try again tomorrow."

"Let's get some sleep," Sirius agreed. "G'night, Prongs."

"'Night Padfoot."

As the two men slipped out of the room and turned to lock the door, neither noticed the tiny, smiling figure of Tristan look up at the video camera and wave.

"I've got bad news," Angelina Johnson announced the instant Harry stepped into the Gryffindor Common Room the following morning. Brushing his blue-streaked bangs out of his eyes, Harry turned to face his Quidditch Captain, and his face immediately fell when he saw her expression.

"What did Umbridge do?" he asked heavily.

"You remember the latest Educational Decree?" Angelina snapped. "Well, that doesn't just include our little Defense group, Harry, she's including Quidditch too!"

"No!" Harry said in shock. "She can't do that! Quidditch has been an established tradition at Hogwarts for… how long, Hermione?"

Hermione, standing impatiently by the notice board, waiting for her incredibly late friends, replied promptly, "987 years and 7 months, give or take a few days."

"Don't tell _me_ that, Potter, tell _her_!" Angelina said hysterically, and Harry realized she was incredibly stressed out. Then again, were he in her position, wouldn't he be as well? How would he feel, being named Quidditch _Captain_, and then told the team was disbanded because some lunatic was power hungry and lived to make children suffer?

Effectively worked into a towering rage, Harry snapped, "Right."

Hermione eyed him warily. "'Right' what, Harry?"

"I am going to march straight up to 'Professor' Umbridge and tell her exactly what I think about her 'Educational Decree'."

Angelina, Hermione, and the few others in the Common Room gaped at him. "Harry… you could be expelled if you don't watch what you say around her!" Hermione said warningly.

"I don't care!" Harry bellowed. "That woman's gone too far! Today she gets her comeuppance! Today, Dolores Umbridge will be dethroned!"

With that said, Harry swept dramatically out of the common room, robes swishing, and eyes steely. Hermione and Angelina stared after him, puzzled. Finally, Hermione offered timidly, "Well, he _has_ been missing a lot of sleep lately…"

Angelina sighed. "I don't care if Harry murders Umbridge, as long as we get the Gryffindor Quidditch team re-formed. I'll see you later, Hermione."

"Bye," she replied absently, before adding a quick "Good morning" to Ron, Ginny, Fred, and George, as the Weasleys entered the common room. The redheads, noticing the torn expression on their friend's face, inquired immediately.

"What's wrong?" Ginny demanded.

"Harry's gone to 'dethrone' Umbridge," Hermione explained.

"Well, that's not very specific, is it?" Ginny frowned.

"Could mean anything from yelling at her to hexing her," Hermione agreed.

"At least he isn't going to 'deflower' her," Ron quipped, and the three boys sniggered at the thought. Their amusement was effectively halted by a powerful hex from Ginny that sent them flying.

"That was _not_ amusing," Ginny snapped reprovingly. "Look what you did to poor, innocent Hermione." The girl in question had turned pale at the disgusting image.

"Sorry, Hermione," Ron and the twins chorused, Ron blushing in embarrassment, the twins simply attempting to avoid another dosage of pain from their darling sister.

"Now, shall we go see if we can salvage Harry's confrontation with Umbridge, or shall we continue acting like immature gits?" Ginny asked sweetly. As Ron and Hermione nodded their consent, Fred and George exchanged identical looks – serious, for once - and they scampered off up the stairs.

"Um…" Hermione began, but gave up in defeat. She would never understand those two.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Harry was furiously storming his way towards the Great Hall, where a terrified first year he'd grabbed told him Umbridge was. Of course, since it was breakfast time, this was the most obvious location for a denizen of Hogwarts, but Harry was too furious to care. So angered was he, in fact, that he nearly bowled over Sirius and James as they stepped out from behind a tapestry.

"Watch it, kid!" Sirius yelped, jumping out of the fuming teen's way. Shaking his shaggy hair from his face as he watched his godson stomp past, he asked James lightly, "What's wrong with him?"

"No clue," James replied easily. "Come on, let's go have breakfast. Wait a minute… was that _Harry_?"

Sirius blinked. "Observation never really was your strong point, was it, Prongs?"

James moaned. "Argh! What kind of father am I? My son is clearly upset over something, and here I am without a care in the world!"

"Must be why you were never any great shakes at Seeker," Sirius muttered.

"What am I thinking?" James wailed on. "Curse my complete lack of paternal instincts!"

"There certainly were a lot of large words in that charming speech, Potter. Are you sure your tiny mind won't explode from thinking so hard?" That oily voice could only belong to Severus Snape, Potions Master extraordinaire. James and Sirius whirled around to face the greasy-haired man who, as usual, was late to breakfast. No one really knew why Snape always entered breakfast twenty minutes in, but James, Sirius, and Remus had worked out a few explanations. They were considering sharing them with the population at large, but as most theories included either flying bananas or chocolate pudding, they decided to keep them to themselves.

"What do _you_ want?" Sirius growled, eyeing Snape as if he were something unpleasant growing on the bottom of his shoe.

"Merely to agree with what Potter so eloquently announced," Snape sneered. "Due to his complete lack of parenting skill, the younger Potter is currently challenging a dear colleague of mine to a wizard's duel. I believe you know her? Dolores Umbridge?"

Sirius and James' jaws dropped. "He wouldn't… would he?" James gasped.

"I don't know! He's _your_ son!"

"Well, you're _his_ godfather! I was clinically _dead_ for fourteen years, remember?! You know the boy better than I do!"

At that point Hermione, Ron, and Ginny came barreling down the corridor, all three out of breath and gasping. "Mister Potter, sir, Harry's snapped!" Ron said between pants. "He and Umbridge are dueling in the Entrance Hall!"

"_WHAT_?" James roared.

Sirius grinned. "Good on him."

"Why hasn't Dumbledore put a stop to this?" James demanded.

Snape sniggered, sounding for all the world like a school yard bully who'd just cheated someone from their lunch money. "Why, he's up in his office in a staff meeting, Potter. Where did you think I was going? Imagine his shock when he discovers his precious Potter attacked a teacher…"

"Shut up!" Sirius snapped. "_Silencio_!"

Snape clutched at his throat, glared furiously at Sirius, and tried to counter the spell but couldn't, because the Animagus had followed up his initial curse with _Expelliarmus_.

"Everyone to the Entrance Hall!" James ordered, completely in control of the situation now that the shock had worn off. "Sirius, take that charm off of Snivellus. And Snivellus, go directly to Dumbledore and inform him what's happening."

"Like hell I will!" Snape spat. "I'd rather be the only teacher present at the scene of the crime, so I have full grounds to expel that sniveling little brat!"

"That sniveling little brat is my _son_!" James roared. "Go to Dumbledore, Snape, or I swear to God you won't be waking up tomorrow morning!"

Snape must have seen something in James's eyes, because he resentfully turned around and swooped off, leaving three very awed teenagers, and two furious adults.

"Come on!" Sirius ordered. "I don't know if Harry or Umbridge will win this, and I don't want to find out!"

"_Tarantallegra_!" Umbridge shouted, and Harry's legs immediately began an intricate, uncontrollable tap dance across the flagstone floor of the Entrance Hall. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Malfoy and his goons cheering on Umbridge, whilst on the Gryffindor side he was getting a standing ovation.

"_Finite Incantanem_!" Harry shouted. "_Furnunculus_!" The beam of light hit Umbridge's left hand, covering it in unsightly boils, and causing her to scream furiously and double the fierceness of her assault.

_Looking back_, Harry considered mentally, _attacking a teacher and Ministry official was probably not the brightest thing to do_.

.:I'll say:. Decimare agreed as his Master dodged a disarming charm. .:If you surrender now, she might go easy on you. Incidentally, what _were_ you thinking?:.

'I was angry, and apparently short on sleep,' Harry said defensively. 'I walked into the hall, and she was standing there telling this first year he couldn't run a Gobstones club – how evil is that? Then she looked up at me and smirks this nasty, evil grin, and fingers her wand.'

.:So you drew out your wand, challenged her to a duel, and viciously attacked her:. Decimare said.

'That's right,' Harry agreed, spiraling another hex towards Umbridge, who by now was panting heavily. The audience didn't know it, but with all the training he'd gone through, Harry could have easily beaten the esteemed High Inquisitor without too much effort; it wasn't as if she were particularly talented, after all.

Indeed, he was starting to consider simply ending the duel, when Umbridge, not wanting to lose to a child in front of her students, smirked evilly and hissed, "This will teach you to sing a different tune, Potter. _Obliviate_!"

Gob smacked, Harry could only watch in disbelief as the woman cast an illegal spell against her underage opponent.

.:Alright:. Decimare snapped. .:This woman has gone too far. Kick her sorry arse:.

'With pleasure,' Harry agreed grimly. As the silvery bolt shot towards him, Harry judged its timing and, with only a second to spare, dove out of the way. Rolling gracefully to his feet, Harry stabbed his wand viciously at Umbridge, who went flying head over heels into the Great Hall doors.

There was a dead silence.

It was Justin Finch-Fletchly who broke the silence. "Where'd you learn to do _that_?"

"It runs in the family," James replied airily as he entered the scene, slowing from a sprint to a lazy saunter when he realized his son was in no immediate danger. "Although, son, I did have a question I've been meaning to ask you."

As Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and Sirius appeared behind the Auror, huffing from the run, Harry lowered his wand slightly. "Yes?" he asked as innocently as he could.

James cleared his throat.

"_When the HELL did you become so UNBELIEVABLY scary, and why in GOD'S name did you attack your TEACHER? Are you MAD? Do you WANT to be expelled?"_

"She deserved it!" Harry snapped irritably, and James's glare grew so dark that any sane person would have run away in fear. "And don't you tell me I'm wrong, Dad! So what if we have to let Umbridge stay here just to keep Fudge happy? What the hell has he done for us? Oh yes, he imprisoned Sirius for _twelve years_, tried to suck out his _soul_, sentenced an innocent Hippogriff to _death_, and, to top it all off, is a bigoted _moron_! His idiocy is going to get us all _killed_ now that Voldemort is back, and all you and Sirius and the rest of you can do is sit back and let her destroy Hogwarts! It's only a matter of time before she dethrones Dumbledore and becomes Headmistress, and I can't let that happen!"

"What do you mean by that?" James asked quietly.

"I mean what I said," Harry replied fiercely. "In the past I may have taken this, but not any more! Dolores Umbridge is a threat, Father, a threat to both Hogwarts and the wizarding world in its entirety. I am taking it upon myself to ensure that she does not continue to threaten the lives of my friends and fellow students."

"He's got a point," Sirius admitted. James shot him an undecipherable look, and the Animagus fell silent and took a smart step back.

"Why you?" James demanded, turning back to his son. "I'll be the first to proclaim the incredible depths of my hatred for Dolores Umbridge, Harry, but it isn't as if we have much of a choice here."

"As a grown man you have responsibilities," Harry agreed. "They prevent you from doing what you deem necessary. I, however, have no such boundaries. No one else is willing to act, so I have. That's all there is to it."

In his head, Decimare applauded him in pride. .:That's telling them, Master. Way to tell off your recently deceased Father who's only goal in life is your continued health and happiness:.

Harry winced. 'You don't think I was too…'

.:Bloodthirsty?:. Decimare offered. .:Insane? Blinded by overwhelming hatred? Homicidal?:.

'I just wanted to get my point across,' Harry said sullenly.

.:Well, you did that well enough:. Decimare drawled. Indeed, if crickets were able to survive in the autumn temperatures of Northern Scotland and make it past all the magical wards of the school, their chirping would be easily heard right about now. .:Congratulations. Today you are expelled from Hogwarts forever:.

'Tell me about,' Harry agreed gloomily, for in typical Harry fashion, he was only now realizing the consequences of his actions. It appeared that for everything he'd learned, foresight and wisdom weren't part of it. 'God, they're going to throw me in Azkaban. Why do I always do and say things without thinking first?'

Decimare rolled his tiny eyes. .:If I knew that, Master, we certainly wouldn't be in this position right now:.

Presently, Dumbledore and the rest of the staff came galloping into the hall, and all of them, including the Headmaster, skidded to a halt when they took in the scene. Umbridge was crumpled at the foot of the doors, the students gathered in a ring around her, silent as the grave, and in the middle of it all stood Harry Potter, staring down his father, wand in hand and a half determined, half angry expression twisting his tanned features.

"Mister Potter," Dumbledore said quietly. All attention immediately turned to him. Over in the corner, Filch and Snape were attempting to help a flustered Umbridge to her feet, without much success. "I do not know what happened here, but I am-"

But what Dumbledore was, no one ever knew, for at that moment something swooped down out of the sky on a broom, clamped a gas mask of sorts over Harry's mouth, while a second figure dropped a large, purple stopwatch into the hands of a scowling Ginny.

Before Harry could even register who the figures were, the stopwatch reached the zero mark and seemed to explode with a bright shower of silver sparks that covered the whole hall from top to bottom. One by one every single person in the hall dropped to the floor in a dead faint, leaving only Harry and the two mystery people standing, the gas masks apparently sparing them from the watch's effects.

"What was that?" he choked. "Who are you?" He waved his wand wildly in their direction, but they apparently weren't intimidated in the least.

"Don't recognize us?" one figure asked in a very familiar voice, and Harry did a double take as the two removed their masks to reveal the grim faces of Fred and George Weasley.

"Fred? George? Why… how…"

"WWWWD Oblivi-watches," Fred explained. "We've been tinkering with them for the past month, and I must say they do their job quite well."

Not even bothering to ask how the twins came up with things like this, Harry instead managed, "And what is their job?"

George gave him a surprised look. "What does it look like? First it casts a massive stunning spell, followed by an Obliviate charm. We set it to wipe the last ten minutes of their memories."

.:Either those two have harnessed the power of the Gods:. Decimare observed, .:or they've dipped a little into the Dark Arts to make those purple machines functional:. But Harry was a bit too preoccupied at the moment to hear the snake spirit's words.

"Why ten minutes?"

"So that they'll never remember any of what just happened," Fred explained, and Harry couldn't remember having ever seen either twin looking so serious. "The duel, your spectacular display of wand work, your speech… none of it."

"But why?" Harry asked in complete confusion.

"Because," George said gravely, "if we didn't, you would be expelled. You know that? Your wand would be snapped before you could say 'Quidditch'. You'd be kicked out of wizarding society, and the world would be without their savior."

"Don't be absurd," Harry scoffed. "Dumbledore would never allow that."

"Yes, he would," Fred snapped. "Because whichever way you spin it, Harry, you attacked a teacher. There's no getting around that. No matter what light you put it in, no matter how right you are, Harry, Dumbledore is an adult, and he will think you can't control your temper… that you are dangerous. And the Ministry will agree with him."

"Sirius and Dad would stand up for me," Harry protested.

"After that tongue lashing you gave them?" George asked incredulously. "Of course they will, Harry, but they'll spend at least a few days fuming, and by the time they're done, you'll have been kicked out of Hogwarts, maybe even England."

Harry rubbed his temples wearily as he sank to the floor. "Lord, I was only trying to teach her a lesson! I saw her bullying those first years, and I couldn't think straight, and… but I meant what I said! She's going to bring us to ruin!"

"She'll try," Fred agreed, "but the way to stop her is not to challenge her to a duel in front of the whole school and announce your intention to 'stop her at all costs'."

"Then what should I do?" Harry asked miserably. "Pretend this whole thing never happened?"

"Why not?" George asked brightly. "No one else will remember a thing. Courtesy of my esteemed twin and I, of course."

.:They're right:. Decimare advised. .:There are better ways to get rid of people like Ms Umbridge. Accept their help, thank them, and move on. And possibly keep an eye on them, because I am frankly worried about their mental state:.

"Right," Harry decided. "Fred, George… thank you."

The twins beamed, all previous seriousness forgotten. "Thank you for what, Harry?" Fred prompted.

"For using your magical device and wits to get me out of a really bad situation," Harry played along.

"What situation?" George said with a wink. "By the way, they'll be waking up in about thirty seconds. Have fun." As the twins slipped away, the occupants of the room did indeed begin waking.

'What do I do now?' Harry thought desperately.

.:Well…:. Decimare pondered. .:You _could _pretend to have been knocked unconscious just like the rest of them… or you could come up with a ridiculous plan that will leave you in an extremely uncomfortable state of embarrassment:.

'I hate you,' Harry snapped. As everyone began popping out of their stupefied state, Harry, mentally cursing both the twins and his stupid, evil sword, began singing, opera-style, 'I am the very model of a modern major general', a song from the muggle opera 'The Pirates of Penzance'. What could he say? His Aunt listened to strange music.

"I am the very model of a modern Major-General,

I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical

From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;

I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,

I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,

About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,

With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse!"

"What's going on?" Ron muttered groggily.

"It appears we are listening to a rendition of a song from the Pirates of Penzance," Dumbledore announced, clapping along as Harry belted his way through the lyrics. "Although why this is, I cannot say…"

"Don't you remember, sir?" Fred asked, popping up at the Headmaster's elbow. "George and I thought it'd make good pre-breakfast entertainment."

"And entertaining it is," Snape agreed, grinning malevolently as Harry's voice cracked while trying to hit a high note. Everyone else, not quite sure what to think, eventually got into the spirit of things, a few of the girls even joining in on the chorus. When the song was done, everyone applauded, many people sniggering at the beet-red Gryffindor-turned-opera-singer, and Harry mentally thanked the Dursleys for buying the cassette of the opera.

As everyone filtered into the Great Hall for breakfast, Harry noticed Sirius and James's less than accepting looks, and realized they knew something wasn't right. But neither man acted on their suspicions, instead herding along into the hall with the rest of the students, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief.

Sitting down at the Gryffindor table, Harry nearly yelped when Fred whispered into his ear, "That was a close one."

"I'll say," Harry agreed softly.

"James and Sirius know something," George decided. "I don't know what, and I know they won't tell anyone if they find out – they'll be downright proud of you, Harry, but just the fact that they somehow know something's wrong is enough to worry me."

"Maybe you're just paranoid," Harry suggested lightly, feeling better already, and ready to face the world again.

"Maybe," Fred agreed darkly. "And maybe not. They are Marauders, after all."

Up at the head table, Dumbledore eyed the three whispering boys. His sparkling blue eyes twinkled as a secretive smile grew on his face.


	26. The Mystery of Ka

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Twenty Six – The Mystery of Ka

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is James Joseph Harold Andrew Potter, and I am here to present a case concerning the so-called 'Educational Decree Number 24'."

"Seeing as it is only you and I in this office, James, and you are certainly not of the female persuasion, I fear I must ask what exactly you are trying to imply about me."

James glowered at the chuckling old wizard before straightening his robes with an expression of great distaste. Smiling, Dumbledore took the parchment James had offered him and scanned it briefly, looking more than a little pleased with the reaction his words had garnered. His smile faded, though, as he progressed down the page, and by the time he reached the bottom his eyes had lost their sparkle.

"James, I understand how you feel, my boy, but you have to understand that this decree restricts the formation of _all_ clubs, including Quidditch. There really isn't anything I can do about it."

"If the Slytherin Quidditch team is allowed to reform, Headmaster, there is _no_ logical reason as to why the Gryffindor team cannot do likewise. It is bias, plain and simple, and I know how much you dislike one side being given an unfair advantage."

Dumbledore sighed and massaged his temples tiredly. "You speak the truth, but Dolores is a dangerous adversary and I do not have the time needed to deal with her in the way that I would like. If I didn't have… other things to deal with, James, you have my assurances that the woman would not be at this school. But as you well know, I have many other responsibilities, and Dolores Umbridge banning Quidditch is not high on my priority list."

"But it is high on Harry's list," James said.

Dumbledore's eyes rose to meet James's. "James," he said warningly. "We have gone over this."

"Yes, we have," James agreed. "And we have also gone over the fact that my son is the _only one who can defeat_-"

"James!" Dumbledore snapped, and James reluctantly fell silent. "You of all people should know the danger of speaking secrets in insecure places!"

"I'm sorry," James said, not sounding very apologetic. "But seriously, Headmaster, you know what I'm trying to tell you. Harry is… very important to our world, currently, and depriving him of the activity he enjoys the most could be disastrous! You know how powerful he is! He escaped from the Dark Lord four times, for God's sake! Quidditch is the one thing that brings him happiness, Albus, and I don't want to see my son joining Voldemort because he can't fly around on a broomstick!"

"Don't be so melodramatic, James. Harry will simply have to cope," Dumbledore said with finality. "I'm sorry, James, but that is my final word. I do not have the resources to go against a Ministry decree at this time, and that's all there is to it."

James glared at the headmaster, and prepared to launch another argument in defense of the Gryffindor Quidditch team when Professor McGonagall stepped into the room, an infuriated look on her usually emotionless face.

"Albus, this won't do at all," McGonagall snapped without so much as a 'hello'. "I absolutely forbid you to allow Dolores Umbridge to prevent the Gryffindor Quidditch team from playing, and let the Slytherin team do so without so much as blinking an eye. It is unjust, unreasonable, and I will not stand for it!"

"Minerva…" Dumbledore trailed off with a sigh. Beside him, James was giving the stern Transfiguration teacher a thumbs up. Dumbledore could deny hot-headed James all he liked, but he wouldn't say no to a request coming from sensible, reasonable Minerva McGonagall.

"I know why you're letting that ridiculous woman take over the school, Albus, and I accept it, but there is no way on earth I will allow you to let her dishonor the name of Gryffindor house!"

"All you have to do is override her authority and give permission for Gryffindor to play, sir. That's hardly going to bring Minister Fudge swooping down on us with his Aurors," James added.

The Headmaster looked from one determined face to the other, before sighing. "I suppose I cannot allow the Gryffindor team to be punished when they did not commit a crime. Minerva, you have my permission to reform the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Please inform Miss Johnson that she is once again the Quidditch Captain."

Giving the headmaster a small smile, which shocked James more than he cared to admit, as she _never_ smiled, McGonagall swept victoriously out of the Headmaster's ornate office. Leaning forward on his elaborately carved desk, Dumbledore gave James a disapproving frown, which James returned with a wide grin.

"Well, you have won this battle, James. It may have turned out well enough for you, but you are not the one who must tell Dolores Umbridge her authority was overridden."

"I'll do my best not to gloat," James replied with a laugh. "Don't worry, she'll get over it. Thanks again."

"Not a problem, my boy, but do try to refrain from calling in Minerva every time you want me to do something."

James raised his hands in mock-surrender. "Hey, don't look at me, Albus, she came entirely of her own accord. I had nothing to do with it."

Dumbledore sighed. "Why don't I believe you?"

James laughed. "Because you're a smart man. Excuse me, but I have a meeting to get to."

Dumbledore's eyes narrowed. "I don't suppose it involves Mr. Black, by any chance? Or another security drill?"

"Why, how did you guess, Headmaster?"

"Because it is Tuesday," Dumbledore said, the twinkle returning to his eyes. "And Harry has Defense class with Madam Umbridge today. Convenient how that works, isn't it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, sir," James replied innocently. "Either way, I've got to get going, so I'll see you around. Thanks again."

"You're welcome, James," Dumbledore said, and James turned to leave the office. "One more thing, James."

"Sir?"

Dumbledore leaned forwards, eyes piercing into James's. "Some of the school's portraits have been complaining about having been moved around and then returned to their places. I was wondering if you knew anything about this strange phenomenon, as the portraits can't recall how or why they were moved."

James froze for an instant, but the old wizard didn't notice it. "I couldn't tell you, sir," he finally settled on replying. "Why ask me?"

Dumbledore frowned. "You are my security chief, James."

James grinned as disarmingly as possible. "And I'm proud of it, sir. I can assure you Sirius and I will investigate this matter thoroughly."

"That's all I ask," Dumbledore agreed. "Look into that, then. Good day."

"Good day," James replied, moving as quickly as possible out of the office. As he sprinted down the revolving staircase, he was breathing much faster than normal. He trusted Sirius with _one_ simple job and the man completely botched it!

"Sirius!" James bellowed as he ran into the common room the two friends shared. Sirius, lying lazily on an overstuffed crimson chair, sipping his morning tea, looked up slowly.

"What's wrong with you?" he replied pleasantly, downing the last dregs of the tea.

"I just went to see the Headmaster, and he asked me why portraits were complaining to him about being moved around! What part of 'wipe their memories' didn't you get, Padfoot?"

Sirius frowned. "I did_ Obliviate_ them, Prongs. I swear on my honor as a Marauder."

That halted James's tirade. Sirius wouldn't lie to him after swearing such a serious oath. Which was rather an oxymoron, considering the Marauders generally despised seriousness and mocked honest people on a regular basis. The bespectacled man slumped down beside his friend with a miserable moan.

"Then it mustn't have worked. Why didn't it work?"

"I don't know," Sirius replied, obviously thinking hard. He suddenly gasped, and then hit himself sharply on the head.

"What'd you figure out?" James inquired, not in the least shocked that his friend was hitting himself. With Sirius, you had to expect everything, from the unusual to the insane. Expect everything, Sirius always maintained, and the unexpected will never happen. James had adopted that philosophy the minute he heard it, and it had driven Lily up the wall on more than once occasion.

"They're paintings," Sirius explained as if it were obvious. "They aren't alive, and they don't have souls. How can you wipe a mind if it doesn't exist?"

James blinked. "Oh. Well, you might have thought of that sooner!"

Sirius jumped to his feet angrily. "Well, excuse me! It was your idea! I don't see you-" He was interrupted in mid-speech when something large and rather heavy suddenly crashed into him, knocking him off his feet so that he hit the floor painfully hard. "What the hell?"

It appeared a child had somehow dropped out of the ceiling onto his head. Sirius, growling like the dog he was, grabbed the young boy by the scruff of his neck and dragged him upright. "Just what do you think you're doing in here, boy?"

The boy looked up at the glowering man with an angelic expression. "The antelopes aren't purple," he explained. Sirius immediately dropped the boy as James sighed loudly behind him.

"It's that Hufflepuff kid we saw on Sentinel two nights ago," James explained tiredly. "What's your name again, kid?"

"I am Tristan, King of the Monkey Slaves," Tristan informed them proudly.

"What are you doing in our rooms?" Sirius demanded, rubbing his head where the kid had slammed into him. "And why were you on the ceiling? On second thought, how did you get on the ceiling in the first place?"

The boy cackled insanely. "Muffins are muffins and bananas are octopuses…" he trailed off at the unimpressed looks on James and Sirius's faces. "Coconut?" he suggested weakly.

"Speak proper English, would you?" Sirius growled. "What are you doing in here? How did you get in here?"

"Ducks," Tristan explained.

Sirius flexed his fingers as if he were about to put them around Tristan's tiny neck. "Kid…"

"Wait," James interjected, holding up a hand. "Ducks… ducks… ducts!"

"What?"

"Ducts! This kid is getting around using the pipe systems, like Harry said the basilisk did three years ago!"

"Is that true?" Sirius demanded.

"Orange," Tristan agreed meekly, still looking a bit wary of Sirius's flexing fingers.

"Right," James said. "So you're using the pipes… which is quite clever, actually…"

"We should have thought of that," Sirius agreed grudgingly.

"… but you haven't said why you decided to sneak in here." Tristan opened his mouth to reply, but James cut him off before he could give his typical insane response. "And your reason had better make sense… to _us_, mind you… or else you'll find yourself in more trouble than you can possibly imagine."

All traces of playfulness vanished from the young boy's eyes. Snapping to attention and gazing at a spot somewhere behind Sirius's head, Tristan announced mechanically, "Tristan Nilme, First Year Hogwarts Student, Hufflepuff House. I was in your living areas on a reconnaissance mission on orders from my commanding officer."

"Reconnaissance?" Sirius demanded of the boy. "Why were you spying on us?"

"Not you, sir, but your general living quarters."

James rolled his eyes. "And who's your commanding officer, boy?"

"I'm not at liberty to say, sir."

Sirius and James exchanged incredulous looks. This boy was either completely insane, or… well, they didn't even want to consider the 'or'. The 'or', of course, was that Tristan Nilme was a spy of Voldemort, and he was going undercover at Hogwarts to obtain information on the school and its inner workings. And he was a _bad _undercover spy, at that.

"You're commanding officer isn't… Voldemort, is it?" James asked seriously. He didn't want to have to arrest a child, but if the boy was truly working for the Dark Lord…

To James and Sirius's relief, the boy looked disgusted at the thought. "This soldier is no servant of the Dark Lord, sir."

"Well, that's a relief, anyway," Sirius said, eyeing the boy with a displeased expression. "But the fact still remains that you're in our rooms, and you _admitted_ you were spying on them for some reason. Care to let us in on it?"

"Negative. I am not permitted to disclose this information. Have a nice day, sirs." With that said, the boy turned and sped out of the room before either of the two stunned men could react.

"Well…" James finally said. "That was… enlightening."

"More like completely useless," Sirius countered. "All we learned is that the boy is even crazier than we thought."

"Yeah…" James trailed off. "You know, for a second there I actually thought that kid had first hand experience being a soldier or an Auror or whatever. How crazy is that?"

"You need more sleep," Sirius stated firmly. "But we do need to keep an eye on that kid, if only for the fact that he's using the pipes to get around the school."

"Maybe that kid's more useful than he seems," said James.

"What do you mean?"

"Now we know that people can get around through the pipes. We'll have to install motion detectors or something at all the entrances and exits in case a Death Eater tries that route."

Sirius grunted. "Well, at least he's good for _something_. Come on, let's go get breakfast. I'm starving."

"What's McGonagall talking to Angelina about?" Ron asked quietly as he, Harry, Hermione, and Ginny sat down at the Gryffindor table.

"No idea," Harry replied, pulling a large platter of bacon towards himself. Taking a few pieces off the plate, he shoved the monstrosity towards Ginny, who eagerly grabbed some of the greasy delight. "Why?"

"I dunno… she seems awfully happy."

"EEEEEH! THANK YOU, PROFESSOR!" Angelina suddenly squealed, so loudly that Harry nearly dropped his precious bacon on the floor as his hands flew to cover his ears.

"Do you have to be so loud?" he demanded, but Angelina was too busy stammering her thanks to the slightly flustered Professor McGonagall. Eventually the stern professor managed to pry the excited girl off of her, and returned to the Head table with as much dignity as she could muster.

As Angelina plopped down a few seats over, Harry leaned over and asked, "What was that all about?"

"We're on!"

"What?"

"McGonagall said she got us permission to reform the Gryffindor Quidditch team! Apparently she went to Dumbledore, and he overrode Umbridge's authority!" Angelina fingered her Quidditch Captain's badge reverently.

Harry blinked. "Wow. I had thought Dumbledore wouldn't have cared less about Quidditch. He's been letting Umbridge get away with so much, I was beginning to think he'd stopped caring about Hogwarts."

"Don't be daft," Hermione snapped as she buttered an English muffin. "Just because you don't understand why Dumbledore intervenes at select times, doesn't mean there isn't a perfectly good reason for why he does."

"I suppose," Harry agreed. He could play Quidditch again! It was as if a great weight had been lifted from his heart. He didn't know what he would've done if Quidditch really had been taken away from him.

.:I'm glad it didn't come to that:. Decimare opined from his position on Harry's finger. .:You probably would have done something stupid and reckless like challenging her to another duel:.

'That didn't happen, remember?' Harry hissed.

.:Just because only you can remember an event doesn't mean it didn't happen:. Decimare snapped. .:Besides, those red-headed boys recall your little outburst just as well as you do:.

'Yeah…' Harry agreed. 'How did they know to help out, anyway? And how did they even know what they'd need to save the situation? I'm sure they don't carry around Oblivi-watches on a regular basis.'

.:I would recommend asking them:. Decimare said. .:Although I doubt you'll get a straight answer. From the impression I get, those two have more secrets than you have hairs on your head. And they are just as unwilling to disclose those secrets as you are to brush said hair:.

'I do so brush it!' Harry protested. 'It's grown out again, meaning it's practically impossible to care for. How is that _my_ fault?'

.:Ask your father to summon Missy to cut it for you. She did a decent job last time:.

Harry snorted. 'Over my dead body. No offense to Missy, but that house elf is absolutely crackers.'

"_Harry_!"

Harry jolted out of his thoughts with a start to see Ginny practically on his lap as she tried to get his attention. Wincing, Harry pushed the redheaded girl off him, and did his best not to smash Decimare to pieces when the snake spirit laughed mockingly in his mind. "Yes, Ginny?" he replied as politely as possible.

Ginny scowled. "Would you stop spacing out? Honestly!"

"I'll space out whenever I like!" Harry protested. "It's a free country!"

"Fine," she snapped. "Then next time I won't bother to try and tell you when it's time to go to class. Now we're both going to be late!"

"What?" Harry demanded, looking at his watch. Damn. She was right. They were supposed to be in class in exactly five minutes. He sighed. "I'm sorry, Ginny, you were right. Forgive me for yelling?" He gave the scowling girl his best puppy-dog eyes, and Ginny's anger quickly melted. Not that he'd expected anything less – he'd learned that trick from the Sirius himself, and Sirius was the master of puppy-dog eyes. The only girl it hadn't worked on was Lily, and that was only because she was already going out with James.

"I forgive you, Harry, but we're still going to be late!" Ginny exclaimed.

Harry grinned mischievously. "We'll see about that."

Taking the very confused girl by the hand, Harry led her quickly out of the Great hall and ducked down a narrow side passage that led to the school laundry. With a finger pressed to his lips, Harry pulled out his wand and gestured towards a small engraving on the bottom left-hand corner of one of the stone wall slabs. Ginny leaned forwards curiously to examine it, and quickly discovered a small snake etched into the stone.

"Harry?" she began curiously, but Harry shushed her and instead tapped the small carving and whispered something softly in Parseltongue, quietly enough so that Ginny couldn't hear. To Ginny's obvious delight, the slab sank dramatically into the wall to reveal a small, fairly large, circular passageway. Following Harry's lead, the two ducked into the secret passage and began following it down its twists and turns.

"Where are we?" Ginny whispered, gulping as the stone slab grated closed behind them. She pulled out her own wand and quickly cast the Lumos spell. "I've never seen this passage before."

_Unsurprising_, Harry thought. This 'passage' was actually one of the many pipes the basilisk had used to get around the school back in Tom Riddle's, and now his, time. Following his investigation of the Chamber of Secrets, Harry had made a small effort to map the multitude of pipes winding through the massive school, and this was one of the few he'd had time to memorize the location of. Ginny, of course, didn't need to know that.

"Well, there're a lot of passages in Hogwarts," Harry responded noncommittally. Ginny didn't seem to totally accept his answer, but thankfully she didn't press the matter.

After a minute of walking in silence, Ginny spoke up again. "We've got two minutes left, Harry. Where are we going?"

"I think this one comes out around the Charms classroom," Harry replied. "You do have Charms first, right?"

As Ginny voiced her agreement, the tunnel came to an abrupt halt, and with another whispered password in Parseltongue, the wall in front of them slid open smoothly. Motioning for Ginny to get to class, which was all of ten meters away, Harry gave the redhead a wink before turning and disappearing back into the passageway, leaving Ginny alone in the hallway with a strange, almost dreamy smile on her face.

.:Oh, well done, Master:. Decimare hissed approvingly. .:Very smooth, if I do say so myself. That girl is head over heels for you:.

Harry blinked. "Huh? Ginny? I think you're imagining things, Decimare."

.:Continue being ignorant if you like, Master, it won't be anything new:. Decimare said.

"Excuse me!" Harry exclaimed. "What did I do to deserve this abuse? I haven't done a thing wrong!"

.:Tell that to your Potions master when you show up ten minutes late for his class:. Decimare replied smugly.

"What are you… oh no, I'm late for class!" Decimare merely hissed victoriously. Harry glared at him. "You're going to pay for this once I get out of detention," Harry muttered angrily, breaking into a sprint as he pelted through the narrow passage.

.:Assuming you don't forget about it, of course. You're memory is pathetically lacking at times:.

Harry ground his teeth and kept on running.

By the time seven o'clock rolled around, Harry was barely able to prevent himself from whooping with joy. Having experienced the horror of Quidditch being taken away, Harry now found himself appreciating every minute he spent on the pitch twice as much as before. That, and the fact that it was in this practice that Angelina planned to begin teaching them formations and broom tricks, and Harry was eager to show off what he'd learned over the summer.

As he marched down to the pitch with Hermione and Ginny flanking him (they had elected to watch the practice), he noticed with much interest that that bizarre Tristan boy was standing nearby, talking to none other than Luna Lovegood, that equally bizarre girl he'd met on the train over a month ago. Turning to Ginny, he inquired if she knew why those two would be hanging out together, as he'd never noticed the pair before.

"I don't know," Ginny admitted, shooting an inquisitive glance at the duo. "I spend a lot of time with Luna – she's a good friend of mine, after all, even if she is a tad eccentric – but I don't think I've ever seen her with Tristan."

"Strange," Harry muttered, watching as Luna said something that sent both of them into hysterical peals of laughter. "Well, that's a mystery for another day, I suppose. Come on, I need to get to practice."

Continuing on towards the pitch, Harry mentally stored the information in his "Things I probably won't ever need again, but it's better to be safe than sorry" file. His mental folder had been growing by leaps and bounds since the start of the summer, and that was beginning to concern Harry more than he cared to admit.

Stopping at the Quidditch changing rooms, Harry gave the girls a quick goodbye, and quipped to Ginny, "Don't worry about me, gorgeous, I'll be perfectly fine at this intense, grueling, and incredibly dangerous practice." It was more of a test than anything else – Decimare claimed that Ginny fancied him, so Harry figured he'd find out the truth of the matter.

Rather than wishing him luck, or blushing, or even stammering a little, as girls in love were supposed to do, Ginny arched an eyebrow and responded, "Why on earth would I be worried about you? You're the smartest, cleverest, handsomest, most incredibly talented person I've ever met."

Harry flushed furiously as Ginny poured on the compliments. _Where does she get off embarrassing me, when I was trying to do it to her? _he wondered. How did these things backfire on him all the time? He must just have horrible luck with women. Wait a minute – what kind of attitude was that? James and Sirius hadn't spent the whole summer giving him an attitude adjustment just for Harry to fail miserably with the first girl he met!

He winked saucily at her. "And you, my dear, are the most incredibly sexy woman I've ever laid eyes upon."

That did it. Ginny flushed scarlet, Hermione gasped and gave him a scandalized look, and Harry swept off into the changing room grinning from ear to ear. Glaring at his back, Ginny muttered furiously, "This isn't over. There is no _way_ he's getting the last word on this. Prat! Who does he think he is?"

Hermione gave the retreating boy an appraising look. "I think he's a boy who's absolutely head over heels for you."

Ginny gaped at her bushy haired friend. "Harry? In _love_? With _me_? You've been reading too many of Lavender's romance novels, Hermione."

Hermione shrugged. "To quote Ron, 'I call 'em as I see 'em.'"

Ginny shook her head and marched off, muttering disbelievingly under her breath. Hermione only smiled pleasantly and trailed after her furious friend.

"RONALD WEASLEY, IF YOU MISS THAT QUAFFLE ONE MORE TIME YOU'LL FIND YOURSELF WITHOUT A TEAM!" Angelina bellowed from where she, Katie, and Alicia were practicing the Hawk-Head Attack Formation. "AND WITHOUT YOUR HEAD, TOO, IF YOU DON'T STOP LAUGHING!"

Ron called back frantically, "It's not my fault, Angelina!Fred hit me with a cheering charm! _Hahahahaha_!"

Angelina groaned. "FRED WEASLEY! GET OUT HERE THIS INSTANT OR I SWEAR I'LL…"

Harry, from his position high above the pitch, tuned out his teammates' bickering with a shake of his head. Why couldn't they just shut up for once and enjoy the wonder of flight? They were worse than Sirius and James, and Lord knows they argued so much it nearly caused Harry to tear his hair out every time he heard them. It was all in good fun, of course, but it was still incredibly irritating.

.:Why don't you try out some of the tricks you learned over the summer?:. Decimare suggested, clearly bored to death. .:It's better than just sitting here listening to those idiots:.

'Those idiots are my friends,' Harry defended, but without much conviction. 'Alright… what have I learned with Dad and Sirius… let's see…'

Leaning forward, Harry began picking up speed as he soared around the pitch, hundreds of feet above the stands and his teammates. Once he was certain he was in absolute control of the broom, Harry very carefully lifted himself up off the broom and placed both feet securely on the Firebolt's main shaft, arms drifting outwards like the spread wings of an eagle to assist him in balancing. Almost immediately, he lost his balance and crashed back down onto the broom, which wobbled unhappily. Thankfully, no one seemed to have noticed him – they were too busy watching Angelina chase Fred around the stadium attempting to beat him over the head with his own club.

_What went wrong?_ Harry fumed silently. He'd been fine over the summer! Granted, he'd been much lower to the ground, and moving at a slower velocity, but the fact remained that he should have been able to manage at least more than a second!

.:I believe it is an unbalance in your internal harmony:. Decimare announced.

Harry blinked. 'Right.'

.:You recall the meditation I had you do, to reach your inner calm and thus achieve harmony between your body, mind, and spirit?:.

'Aside from the fact that I have to practice it every single night?' Harry asked sarcastically.

.:Yes:. the snake agreed.

Harry sighed. 'What are you trying to tell me, Decimare?'

The snake cleared its tiny throat. .:I believe the reason you are having difficulty is because at the time you learned to stand on your broomstick, you had not yet begun meditating. As you reached deeper and deeper into your inner self, your body has come to be more and more in tune with your mind, giving you superior balance and perception:.

'So you're saying that… my balance is better… so my center of gravity is off?' Harry struggled to understand.

.:That is a rather ignorant way of putting it, but yes:. Decimare agreed. .:I have many other theories, but most are rather… abstract, so I will not burden you with them:.

Harry was completely ignoring the snake's words as he attempted to find a solution to this new obstacle. 'So in order to regain the ability to stand on my broom, I have to… er… undo the meditation effects so I'm back to my previous self?'

.:And destroy all you've worked for? Lord no!:. Decimare exclaimed, horrified at the mere suggestion. .:You can simply enter the meditation trance, and attempt to stand on your silly broom whilst in said trance. Because you are achieving inner peace, your body should as well, meaning you should have no trouble attempting your fancy little stunt:.

This sounded wonderful to Harry, but he still had one concern… mainly that whenever he entered the trance, he completely lost touch with reality and entered an endless space where time and substance had no meaning. 'Er… won't I just fall off the broom?' Harry wondered. 'I mean, I can't tell anything that's going on when I'm in that trance!'

.:That is because you've only ever entered it when you were sitting down, with no outside distractions, and completely at peace with the world:.

'I wouldn't go that far…' Harry muttered.

.:I firmly believe that, should you enter the trance, and know that if you blank out, you will fall a hundred feet to your death, your magical… well, let's just call it your magic, shall we? Your magic will guide you to the next level of meditation and allow you to achieve harmony while at the same time perceiving the world around you:.

Harry wasn't following most of this, but he thought he got the basic gist. 'So you think the danger of the situation will force my mind to take me to the next level of meditation?'

.:Essentially, yes:. Decimare agreed. .:However-:.

"Let's do it!" Harry shouted in exhilaration, tuning out his companion. He carefully positioned himself in the standing posture and braced himself. Reaching into his mind, into that calm core that existed within him, Harry opened himself to the magic as he always had and felt the rhapsody that came of his mind, body, and spirit moving in perfect rhythm.

Slowly, he felt his mind slipping away as it always did, but this time Harry kept a firm grasp on his sense of reality, knowing if he lost it, he'd plummet to his death. The effect he achieved was spectacular. It was as if he was blind, and now suddenly could see. Harry had never felt so… complete before, and he discovered that this feeling, this state of being, was more intense than anything he'd ever felt from flying on his broom.

.:That's how it's done:. Decimare hissed approvingly, and Harry was certain he could detect a hint of pride in the tone.

"This… is amazing," Harry whispered, magic flowing through his veins in a way he'd never believed possible. "It's almost like I can… feel the magic, somehow."

Decimare snorted. .:It certainly took you long enough, master. Four months! Pitiful, I must say:.

"You're lying," Harry announced, then blinked. "Er… how did I know that?"

.:It's the magic:. Decimare explained. .:Once you touch your inner ka-:.

"Ka?" Harry interrupted questioningly, returning to sitting position on his broom.

Decimare hissed in irritation. .:Yes, Master, your 'ka'. Derived from the Ancient Egyptian term for 'soul', to be precise. It is what wizards call your inner self, your soul, so to speak:.

"Ka," Harry repeated. "Kind of a stupid word, isn't it?"

.:Do try to pay attention:. Decimare groaned. .:Once you touch your ka, you reach the next level, and your ka helps you become in tune with the world around you. In this case, you used your ka to determine that I was lying:.

"Cool!" Harry exclaimed. "This is wicked! What else can this ka do?"

.:Oh, a multitude of things:. Decimare replied. .:All the greatest wizards are able to touch their ka, Albus Dumbledore included:.

"No kidding?" Harry replied, eyebrows raised. "I suppose it makes sense, though. He's a powerful wizard, even if a little… annoying at times."

.:Indeed:. Decimare agreed dryly.

Harry leaned back on the Firebolt, arms crossed in thought. "You know, this could really come in handy, being able to detect lies and all. Maybe I could individually question everyone in the school and see who was a Death Eater."

For some reason, Decimare seemed incredibly amused by this concept. "What?" Harry demanded.

.:I will tell you in a moment. First, would you please tell me if I'm lying? My name is Peggy Sue, and I live in Moose Jaw, Manitoba, Canada:.

"Well, of course you are!" Harry exclaimed incredulously.

.:Use your ka to tell me:. Decimare instructed smugly.

"Fine," Harry snapped. "You are… you are… hey! What happened?"

.:You slipped out of the trance, master:. Decimare explained as if speaking to a young child. .:You can barely meditate normally for over half an hour – what makes you think you'll be able to stay in touch with your ka for more than a few minutes? Actually, I doubt you can even reach your ka again:.

Harry spluttered. "Well, of course I can! Why couldn't I?"

.:Prove it:.

Harry closed his eyes and reached once again into the depths of his mind, attempting to keep a hold of reality. To his dismay, however, without the threat of imminent danger, it was a no go, and he slipped back into the usual meditative trance. After wrenching himself out of it, Harry realized he was far away from attaining any control over this elusive 'ka' of his. Plus, he'd almost fallen off his broom again.

.:I guess you won't be doing any broom-standing for a while:. Decimare remarked.

"I suppose not," Harry agreed glumly. "I suppose I can always practice other, less balance-dependant moves, can't I?"

.:No reason why not:. Decimare agreed.

"POTTER! GET YOUR ARSE DOWN HERE! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO CALL YOU?!" Angelina shrieked, causing Harry to wince.

"COMING!"

"What on earth were you doing up there?" Angelina demanded, gesticulating wildly and then gasping as she almost unbalanced herself. Harry had reached out, lightning-quick, to grab her arm before she fell off her broom, and she brushed off his hand with an impatient gesture. "Seriously, Potter, if you want to stay on this team, you need to be _part_ of the team!"

Harry winced. "I get the idea, Angelina!"

"Then what were you doing?" she snapped. "And it'd better be good, Potter, or I swear I'll kick you off this team."

.:Improvise:. Decimare suggested.

"I was… er… I was practicing my… aerial acrobatics!" Harry announced, mentally congratulating himself. It was something he, James, and Sirius had been working on over the summer, and while it was useless in an actual game of Quidditch, it was amazingly cool to watch, and even more fun to do.

The tall Captain narrowed her eyes. "And what exactly is aerial acrobatics?"

"How 'bout I show you?" Harry offered.

She snorted. "Be my guest, Potter. And once you're done your little stunt, we can continue with good, old-fashioned, _team_ practice. Try not to break your neck."

"I'll do that," Harry snapped, a bit miffed at the girl's lack of faith in him. Doing a sharp 180 degree turn, Harry zoomed up into the sky, one hundred feet, two hundred feet… all the way up to about five hundred feet. The stadium looked like a speck of dust from this high an altitude, and Harry was certain it wasn't safe to be up this high. Since when had that ever stopped him? Besides, he needed the height to attain the proper speeds needed to perform the stunt in a non-fatal manner.

.:Master, you recall that little talk we had about you being completely unbalanced?:. Decimare asked somewhat nervously.

"Mentally or physically?" Harry quipped. "Don't worry, I've got it covered. Besides, this stunt really has nothing to do with balance… well, it does, but I'm certainly balanced enough to handle this! Get ready, Decimare! This is gonna be one hell of a ride!"

.:I'm ecstatic:. Decimare droned.

With a short prayer to Lady Luck, Harry turned his broom's handle down, and with a whoop of glee he was off, streaking towards the ground like a human comet. As he reached the roughly three hundred foot mark, Harry relaxed his death grip on the broom and… let go.

Suspended in midair as he raced towards his doom, Harry began a series of flips and twists and rolls that would make any professional diver jealous, arms and legs perfectly streamlined against the roaring wind. He could dimly hear female screams below, and decided to ignore them and instead ensure his Firebolt, which was plummeting down beside him thanks to gravity, was in arms reach.

Then, as the pitch loomed up at him, and his teammates awestruck faces came clearly into view, Harry did one last twist and moved into perfect dive position. Just as he was about to hit the perfectly manicured lawn, he extended one arm and grasped his Firebolt, pulling himself onto it at the last second, and swooping up and away into the clear blue sky. The cheers from the hastily assembled crowd were almost deafening.

"POTTER!" he heard Angelina shriek. "GET DOWN HERE!"

_Apparently she wasn't impressed_, Harry thought, extremely pleased with himself for not messing up and splatting face-first into the ground. At the Potter manor they'd had a special charm on the pitch that made it feel like a large feather bed, so Harry couldn't get too injured whilst practicing the stunt, but here there was no such thing. In all rights, he was lucky to be alive.

.:ARE YOU INSANE?:. Decimare was shrieking in his mind. .:YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?:.

'I knew I could do it,' Harry defended. 'I've done it plenty of times before; you were there for half of them.'

.:But that was with the safety charm! When your father finds out…:. Decimare trailed off threateningly.

'He'll be proud of me, just like you should be,' Harry snapped in a tone that brooked no argument. 'Besides,' he added with a grin, 'it was fun.'

.:FUN? HAVE YOU COMPLETELY LOST YOUR SENSES? FUN!!! WHY, I OUGHT TO…:.

Harry tuned the enraged spirit out as he descended back to the pitch to meet his fellow teammates, who were staring at him in barely disguised awe. Finally, Fred exclaimed, "Harry, that was _amazing_! How did you _do_ that?"

Angelina bopped the redhead with her broom. "That was completely reckless, Harry! Where would we be without our Seeker?"

"I was perfectly in control," Harry reassured her. He couldn't help but grin as his teammates began ecstatically describing his stunt in full detail.

"Three twists into a forward quadruple summersault!" Katie exclaimed. "I wouldn't have thought it possible!"

"Did you see his posture?" Alicia demanded. "That kid was born to fly!"

"Bloody brilliant!" Ron agreed enthusiastically. "I told you never to doubt my best friend!"

"I guess I'll be staying on the team, eh, Angelina?" Harry asked, nudging her. The tall black girl looked disgruntled, but couldn't hide her delight for long. It _had_ been amazingly cool, after all.

"Staying on the team?" she exclaimed. "How could you not stay? You're the most amazing flyer in a thousand years! That was absolutely fantastic! How did you do that? I mean, that little twisty thing was so…"

As if Harry wasn't pleased enough already, the next minute Hermione and Ginny came racing onto the field, looking absolutely awed. Both girls flew at Harry and tackled him to the ground in a double hug, and to Harry's shock, Hermione was on the verge of tears, and Ginny looked no better.

"Er… Hermione? Ginny? Would you mind getting off me?"

.:I don't know why you're complaining:. Decimare remarked. .:If I had to lovely girls plastered to me, I wouldn't want them to move:.

'Did I ask for your opinion?' Harry groaned, gently pushing the two girls off him. And good thing, too, for the next minute Ginny was picked up off the ground and shoved behind three glaring male redheads.

Harry blinked as he and Hermione slowly got to their feet. "Um… Fred? George? Ron?"

"Just what were you doing to our sister?" George demanded, ignoring Ginny's attempts to push through their human barrier. "Just because you're a great Seeker doesn't mean you can just pounce on every girl you see!"

"She pounced on me!" Harry retorted, then groaned as the three boys' eyes darkened. "I didn't ask her to hug me!"

"Honestly," Hermione snapped, taking control of the situation before it got out of hand. "You three are incorrigible. Ginny and I were very worried about Harry, and got a little overemotional in our attempts to make sure he was all right. That's all there was to it. Now let go of Ginny before she gets mad and decides to hex you all to Germany."

Ginny did indeed look like she was about to do just that. Her brothers quickly moved away from her, eyeing her wand in trepidation. Satisfied no one was going to do anything stupid, Hermione grabbed Fred and George by the sleeve, glared at Ron as if to say, "follow me or die", and marched off towards the exit where the rest of the team was congregated with the other spectators that had seen Harry's acrobatics.

This, of course, left Harry and Ginny alone in the middle of the Quidditch Pitch, both rather tense from the recent confrontation. Finally, Ginny said quietly, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Harry replied earnestly. "Honestly, Gin, there was no way I could've messed that up. I've done it a thousand times."

"Still… you might have warned me first," she muttered, cheeks slowly turning red. Harry found she was very attractive when she blushed, and then wondered where the hell that had come from.

"Why?" he asked curiously.

"I was worried," she admitted.

Harry was stunned. "You were?"

That seemed the wrong thing to say. "Well, of course I was! My friend suddenly plummets from five _hundred_ feet in the air, and starts doing flips as if nothing's the matter!"

"You have to admit it was cool," Harry said. "Come on, you know you want to."

She unwillingly smiled slightly. "Alright, so it was pretty cool… but that doesn't change the fact that you could have died!"

"Yeah, well, I didn't, did I?" he countered, and Ginny was forced to concede the point, even if unwillingly. "Besides, what can I say? I'm just a … what did you say again? Oh yes, the smartest, cleverest, most intelligent and skilled person you've ever met."

"I was exaggerating!" Ginny protested. "Besides, I can name loads of guys smarter and more handsome than you."

"Like who?" Harry asked, unconsciously moving closer to the blushing girl. As James had told him, there was no better way to get a true confession from a girl than putting her on the spot. Which was what Harry was trying, and succeeding, in doing to Ginny. Unfortunately, or fortunately, for him, Ginny had more spunk than he'd accounted for.

"Well…" she suddenly grinned evilly. "Draco Malfoy, for one."

That had the desired effect. Harry jerked back, disgusted at the thought. "There is _no_ way Malfoy is smarter than me! And he's not that handsome…"

"Take it from a girl, Harry," Ginny smirked. "Malfoy may not be a genius, but in terms of physical attraction… he's absolutely yummy."

Harry was revolted. "YUMMY? MALFOY?"

Ginny's eyes twinkled like she knew something he didn't. "You know, Harry… you're pretty yummy yourself." Harry's eyes widened. "Night…"

Harry watched in shock as the curvy redhead swept off towards the exit, completely ignoring Harry's shell-shocked expression. Unable to move, Harry simply stood there in the middle of the pitch for several minutes as he tried to decode Ginny's words.

.:I think she finds you attractive:. Decimare opined. .:I stand by my earlier guess – that girl fancies you:.

"You really think so?" Harry asked, dazed from the idea.

Decimare snorted. .:Unless she's planning on turning cannibal and eating you, master, then I believe that was the meaning behind her words:.

Harry simply gazed uncomprehendingly at the grassy floor. Ginny fancied… him?


	27. Ginny's Discovery

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Twenty Seven – Ginny's Discovery

After Harry's near-death stunt at the Quidditch pitch, he, Hermione, and Ron retired to the Gryffindor Common Room for some much-needed planning time. The current issue of debate happened to be their now illegal Defense club.

"I think we should still go with it," Ron finally said.

"Well, of course we should," Hermione agreed promptly. "But we need somewhere to run it where Umbridge can't find us, and I can't for the life of me figure out where that should be. Got any ideas, Harry?"

"A few," he admitted, "but I don't think they'll work out."

"Let's hear them, and go from there," Hermione said firmly. "I will not allow that evil woman to get the better of us! It would be an insult to Hogwarts!"

Harry and Ron blinked non-comprehensively. "How so?" Ron finally asked.

"Because!" she exclaimed. "Hogwarts' heart and soul is in the people who live in it, meaning students like us. And if we can't figure out a way to stop an obvious threat to Hogwarts, then we're failing our school!"

Harry and Ron shared a look. "I suppose…" Harry said. "But I still think you're being overly-dramatic, Hermione."

"For sure," Ron agreed.

"Think what you will," Hermione replied crossly. "The fact still remains that we need a secret meeting room. Harry, would you _please_ give us your ideas?"

"Fine," he said. "But none of them will work. The Shrieking Shack is too small. Any classroom wouldn't be secure enough. The secret passages I know aren't large enough." The three lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

.:What about the Chamber?:. Decimare hissed to Harry, causing the boy's emerald eyes to widen in surprise.

'I hadn't thought of that,' he replied, considering the matter. 'It's perfect in every respect… except for the fact that I'm not supposed to be going down there at all, and the rest of Hogwarts isn't supposed to know it even exists. Forming a secret club is one thing, Decimare, but if the Headmaster finds out I've been going into the Chamber, let alone taking _students _with me… I don't even _want_ to know what he'd do to me.'

.:Nothing pleasant, I imagine:. Decimare agreed. .:Then where will your group meet?:.

Harry glanced down at the orborous ring with an incredulous look. 'What do you think we've been talking about for the past half-hour? Pay attention!'

.:You need more sleep:. Decimare decided.

'Shut up,' he snapped peevishly. Speaking of peevishness… "Hermione, Ron, have any of you seen Peeves this term?"

They stared blankly at him, obviously taken aback at being interrupted mid-conversation by a totally random question. The question was taken to heart, however, as it was certainly an intriguing one.

"I don't think so…" Hermione replied thoughtfully. "I wonder where he went? It's been almost two months, after all. Maybe he's ill?"

Ron scoffed. "He's a poltergeist, Hermione. They don't get sick."

Hermione bristled at the redhead. "What do _you_ know about poltergeists, Ronald? You probably don't even know what they are! I know I've read about ghostly illnesses somewhere…"

"Oy!" Ron exclaimed. "I do too know what a poltergeist is!"

"Of course you do," Hermione said condescendingly.

Harry tuned them out with a roll of his eyes. Honestly, they were completely hopeless. Maybe one day they could take all their negative energy and fuel it towards something positive… like a relationship. He laughed as he imagined the look on their faces if he told them they should go out. That would be a sight to see.

"I'm going to see Sirius and dad," Harry announced. He was totally ignored by his bickering friends. "Well, fine then," he snapped somewhat irritably, before turning and stalking out of the Common room. Where did they get off, treating him like that? He ought to ignore them for a few days, so they could see how it felt.

.:You're getting depressed again:. Decimare observed. .:You need more sleep:.

"STOP SAYING THAT!" Harry yelled. "Why does everyone _always_ say that? I _do not_ need more sleep!"

"Do you often talk to yourself, Potter?" a snide voice inquired. Harry didn't have to be a genius to figure out who the voice belonged to.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" he asked tiredly, turning to face the smirking blond. It actually surprised him to see the boy in front of him; he'd had very few encounters with the Slytherin this year, disregarding Sirius's murder attempt a few weeks earlier.

"How are things going?" he asked with an evil grin. "Classes alright? Any girls catch your eye? Your father treating you alright?"

Harry took two steps back and drew his wand. "What do you want, Malfoy?" he repeated, eyes narrowing as he moved into a defensive position.

The blond put his hands in the air in a passive gesture. "No need to get all confrontational with me, Potter. I'm just taking an interest in your health, like any good friend would."

"You aren't my friend," Harry snapped. "And the only interest you have in me is getting information to report back to Voldemort."

Malfoy's eyes widened in mock-shock. "You injure me, Potter! What have I done to deserve such angry, hateful words?"

Harry's fingers tightened around his wand, and his other hand itched to pull Decimare and decapitate Malfoy. Lord knows he deserved it. Maybe Sirius had the right idea after all.

.:Calm down:. Decimare snapped. .:Murder will get you more than a detention. I thought you learned that when you tangled with Umbridge:.

His fingers unclenched at the snake's words, but he still eyed the blond suspiciously. "I'm only going to ask you this one more time, Malfoy. What do you want?"

Malfoy gave Harry a slow, lazy smile that Harry almost shuddered at. The boy was pure evil, he was sure. "I want to be your friend."

There was complete silence as Harry simply gaped at Malfoy in complete and utter shock.

Finally, he regained enough of his wits to gasp, "You want to _what_?"

"Be your friend," he replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Harry eyed him suspiciously. "What's the catch?"

"Catch?" Malfoy said in surprise. "No catch. I'm your friend, you're my friend, we hang out… you know, normal buddy stuff."

Harry didn't think he'd _ever_ heard Malfoy say "buddy", and never wanted to again. He backed away from the frankly suspicious boy. "Malfoy, you are a sick, twisted, little man. Stay away from me and I'll pretend this never happened."

Malfoy smirked. "Have it your way, Potter." He suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, leather-bound book and black quill. "October 9th," he said as he scribbled away in the book. "Attempted to befriend Potter to exploit and one day betray him. Mission unsuccessful. Request change in assignment. Will continue on with mission until change is received. Respectfully yours, Draco Malfoy, loyal servant and Death Eater." He snapped the book shut and placed it back in his pocket.

Harry gaped at the blond. "What?" Malfoy demanded.

"You… you just admitted you're a Death Eater!" he exclaimed, taken aback. "Malfoy, if you're going to be an undercover agent, at least _try_ to be secretive about it!"

"Well, excuse me," Malfoy sneered. "What do _you_ know about the functioning of evil cults?"

"Enough to know you're a horrible excuse for a Death Eater!" Harry exclaimed.

.:There's more to this boy than meets the eye:. Decimare said.

'What do you mean?'

.:Not all Slytherins are necessarily evil:. Decimare replied. .:Look at me:.

'But you _are _evil,' Harry retorted.

.:That is beside the point:. Decimare huffed.

"Are you saying you don't want to be a Death Eater, Malfoy?" Harry asked, unable to contain his excitement. If it were true, they would have _two_ spies working for them!

"I don't know…" Malfoy trailed off as if in deep thought. "I just get tired, you know? Of always trying to be the perfect, evil son. I don't know if the Dark side is really the right side to be on. What if my whole life was really a lie? Did I choose the right side?"

"Our side is the right side," Harry encouraged. "Talk to Dumbledore, he can help you! You don't want to be a minion of Voldemort, Malfoy! He's completely sadistic! He's as likely to kill you as his enemies!"

"You're right!" Malfoy exclaimed with a look of realization. "I'll go see Dumbledore right now! How could I have been so wrong? Oh, woe is me!" He gave a melodramatic sigh.

Then he burst out laughing.

Harry blinked. He had the distinct feeling he'd been had.

"You were right, Pansy," Malfoy cackled as he wiped tears of laughter from his silver eyes. "The git really does believe there's good in everyone! I concede defeat. Here's the galleons you won."

Pansy Parkinson, Crabbe, Goyle, and Blaise Zabini stepped out from a nearby classroom, all clearly finding the situation hilarious. Striding forward, Pansy snatched the gold from Malfoy's hand. Then the five turned to regard Harry with evil smirks.

'Not all Slytherins are evil?' Harry demanded furiously of Decimare. 'What the _hell_ was that supposed to mean? I believed you, and Malfoy was just being a prat as usual!'

.:Whoops:. Decimare said, not seeming sorry at all. Harry suspected the snake had deceived him on purpose. No doubt there was some lesson to be learned here.

"Laugh all you like," Harry told the Slytherins wearily. "But one day you'll regret your allegiance. And when you do, you'll find no sympathy from me."

"Whatever, Potter," Malfoy said with a laugh. "My god, you're too good to be true!"

"Help me, Harry! The Dark Lord is so mean to me! Waaaah!" Pansy imitated, laughing shrilly.

Harry merely rubbed his temples tiredly and walked off down the hall, deliberately ignoring the five. "Don't walk away from us, Potter!" Pansy shrieked, but Harry ignored her as he turned the corner out of sight.

"They think it's all fun and games now, but one day they'll regret the decisions they've made," Harry said wisely.

.:True enough:. Decimare agreed. .:Speaking of which, what have you learned from this little adventure:.

"Not to trust people just because they seem sincere," Harry said. "Although I should have known that already. I guess I won't forget the lesson again."

.:See that you don't:. Decimare snapped. .:You can't trust anyone, you should know that by now. Including me. I thought your run-in with Aberforth Dumbledore taught you as much:.

"Don't rub it in," Harry said with a sigh.

.:Someone has to:. Decimare replied. .:How else would you learn?:.

Unable to come up with a suitably witty reply, Harry settled for his usual fallback. 'Shut up, Dceimare'.

"Harry!" Sirius beamed when his godson stepped into his sitting room. "Come on in! We haven't seen you in _ages_!"

"What are you doing here?" James demanded. "You look tired. Have you been getting enough sleep?"

"_Ahhhh_!" Harry moaned. "Would everyone leave me alone about my sleep, already? I'll sleep as much as I want to, and not one second more, damn it!"

James winced, backing up a step. "What's wrong with you?"

Harry sighed morosely, flopping onto a nearby chair. James and Sirius pulled up armchairs beside him, regarding the brooding Gryffindor intently. "You know that secret Defense club I was planning?"

"The one that everyone knows about?" Sirius asked. "Sure."

"What we don't know is if it's still on. How's it going?" James added.

"We still want to run it," Harry admitted. "But we don't know _where_. Nowhere I know of is large or secure enough to be useful."

James and Sirius exchanged glances, much to Harry's surprise. He eyed them suspiciously. "You know something, don't you?"

"Well, not know, so much as are aware of…" Sirius said shiftily.

"Any help would be appreciated," Harry snapped, annoyed at their secretiveness.

James eyed his son thoughtfully. "How old are you now, son?"

"Er… fifteen…"

James turned to Sirius with a serious expression. "I think it time he learned the truth."

Sirius nodded gravely. "I believe so. Harry, there's something we haven't told you."

Harry eyed the duo in horror. "You two are secretly gay lovers, aren't you?"

The three stared at each other a moment, before bursting out laughing. Harry wiped tears from his eyes. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't help myself. You two are almost never serious."

"I think I'd get more respect from my own son," James grumbled. "Now, would you like to know our deep, dark secret, or continue being a git?"

"Go ahead," Harry said grandly. Sirius and James stared at him. He blinked. "Did you want something?" he asked tentatively.

"The map!" Sirius exclaimed. "What did you think we were waiting for? The world to stop turning?"

"You never asked for the map," Harry grumbled, but handed it over anyway. Then a thought occurred to him.

'Decimare, we labeled parts of the Chamber on there! When they see it…'

.:I don't think that'll be a problem:. Decimare replied shiftily.

'What did you do?' Harry demanded.

.:The same thing your guardians did, which I expect they're about to reveal to you:.

"As you know, Harry, this map doesn't automatically show all of Hogwarts. We had to record and then draw out every detail," James explained.

"With a little magical help, of course," Sirius added.

"The point is that I'm sure you've noticed there are a few rooms missing on the map that should be there but aren't."

"A few, yes," Harry agreed. "Parts of the Headmaster's office don't show up on there, and a few other rooms I've never been to but know definitely exist."

"That's because, just as there is a password to activate the map, there is also one to activate the hidden rooms."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "Explain."

Sirius's dark eyes twinkled in the firelight. "When the Marauders first made this map, we didn't want just anyone using the map, which is why we have the 'I solemnly swear' password. But in case someone _did_ figure it out – like the Weasley twins did – there were some rooms on there that housed secrets we didn't want _anyone_ to know about. So we put another password on the map that, only when activated, would show all the most secret rooms."

'Which is what you did to the Chamber,' Harry remarked mentally to Decimare.

"Which leads us to the Room of Requirement," James concluded. Placing his wand on the map with a flourish, he announced solemnly, "Snape is a slimy git."

Harry gaped at his father. "You're _joking_."

The two men looked slightly abashed. "We were only fifteen," Sirius said defensively. "Besides, no self-respecting Slytherin would ever say such a thing against their housemate or Potions master. I think it very clever."

.:The password to access the Chamber maps is 'Umbra Socius' – the Shadow Ally spell. I thought it appropriate:. Decimare informed Harry.

Harry rolled his eyes. "So what is the Room of Requirement?"

Sirius pulled his godson closer to the map, and tapped a small room that had materialized out of nowhere – obviously one of their hidden rooms. "This room changes its dimensions and belongings to the visitor's every needs. For instance, if you needed someplace to hide from a teacher, it might become a massive attic with thousands of old boxes and dressers – the ideal hiding place."

"So I could ask for a dueling arena… and it'd become one?" Harry asked.

"Essentially, yes," James agreed. "The only tough part is getting into the room – the damn thing took us two years to solve. What you do is go to the seventh floor and walk back and forth in front of the wall opposite…"

As Harry absorbed the information, his heart felt lighter than it had in weeks. It seemed they would have a chance to defy Umbridge after all! No matter they were breaking about fifty school rules; it would pay off in the long run.

"Thanks," he told Sirius and James, grinning from ear to ear. "I don't know what I'd have done without you." He stood to leave.

He was therefore rather surprised when the two grabbed him and marched him back to his seat. "Er…"

"That's all?" James demanded. "Hello, father who gave me life, and godfather who spent twelve years in Azkaban for me, hurry up and tell me all your secrets so I can leave? What's with that? I'd think we merit a bit more courtesy than that."

Ashamed, Harry quickly said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude! It's just that, you know, it's midnight, and I thought you might want to get some sleep… seeing as you've been badgering me to go to bed earlier all evening…"

His guardians exchanged a look. "Right," Sirius decided firmly. "Sleep first. Talk later."

"You'd better come see us tomorrow, young man, or you will be severely punished!" James ordered his son sternly.

"But I was thinking of having the first Defense meeting tomorrow…"

Sirius frowned in thought, before giving Harry a brilliant smile. "Then we'll come with you! You could use the experience of two Aurors at your secret meeting!"

"Except that it's against school rules, and Umbridge could have you kicked out if she found out you were aiding students in serious rule-breaking," Harry reminded Sirius unhappily. It would've been awesome to have them along at the meetings, but in reality it was impossible. "You shouldn't even know we're running it."

The two older men exchanged disheartened looks, but nevertheless seemed surprisingly optimistic. "No problem," James said brightly. "We'll just figure out a way to circumvent the rules. We've done it loads of times; this one'll be no different."

"And until we find a loop-hole, you make sure you come and see us _every_ weekend," Sirius ordered Harry, who nodded earnestly, un-trimmed hair flopping wildly. Sirius winced at that.

"What?" Harry asked in annoyance. "It's not like there's a hair salon at Hogwarts."

Sirius got a mad glint in his eye. James smacked him on the head. The glint disappeared.

"Oy! What was that for?" Sirius growled.

James grinned at him as he ducked the return blow. "Bad things happen when you get that glint in your eye, Padfoot."

"What glint? The only glint I see is the one your head is going to make once I separate it from your body!" Sirius roared, chasing his laughing friend around the cozy sitting room. Harry grinned happily as he watched the two grown men he'd come to know and love act like complete idiots as they stumbled around the room, fighting over an obscure reason that only made sense to them.

"That doesn't make any sense!" James wheezed as he tumbled over Harry's head and onto a nearby couch.

"You don't make any sense!" Harry laughed, ducking as Sirius shot over him to tackle a cackling James to the ground. "Come on, you two, stop it. You'll get too worked up to be able to go to sleep."

That stopped them in their tracks. Getting to his feet, Sirius put his hands on his hips and demanded, "Who are you, our mother?" He and James started cackling again.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Goodnight, Dad, Sirius. See you later. Try not to kill yourselves."

"NOOOOOOOO! DON'T GO!" James and Sirius wailed in unison. Harry didn't even pause to look back; he ran as fast as he could out the door. He heard two thumps as his guardians' bodies hit the door. Shaking his head, Harry straightened out his robes and headed back to Gryffindor tower, with the pleading shouts of James and Sirius echoing through the halls.

By 7:00 the next evening the word of the first meeting's time and place had spread throughout the entire school, and Hermione was confident everyone who'd signed the member's list would be present come the start at 7:30. The only thing that now remained was to actually create a room to meet in.

"So we just walk back and forth in front of this wall, thinking hard, and this room will magically appear," Ron asked, clearly unconvinced the plan would work.

"According to Dad and Sirius, yeah," Harry agreed. "Come on, let's get going."

The trio walked back and forth down the hall, each envisioning their ideal practicing room. Hermione squealed in delight when a large, green door appeared on the wall after their third round. The two boys gave her an incredulous look.

"I've been spending a lot of time with Ginny," she explained, abashed. "I didn't mean to pick up any of her… more girlish habits."

"Just don't do it again," Ron muttered, and Hermione glared at him. Harry merely sighed. Striding forward, Harry seized the large gold doorknob and pushed the door open. The sight that met his eyes gave his heart a new sense of hope for the future of their secret club.

Stretching before him was an elongated rectangle of a room, more than large enough for their purposes, with bookshelves lining the walls and all sorts of Dark Arts detectors scattered along the sides of the room. Hermione was off like a shot, pouncing on the bookshelves like a starved lion would a plump, juicy antelope. Harry gravitated towards the large foe-mirror against the back wall, whilst Ron flopped down on one of the many fluffy pillows scattered around the room.

Soon enough, people began arriving, with nearly every one marveling at the incredible Room of Requirement. By the time 7:30 rolled around, Harry was more than ready to start their first meeting, so repetitive had the chatter gotten.

Harry got to his feet and cleared his throat as loudly as possible. Silence gradually descended throughout the chamber as everyone's attention turned to the black-haired boy. "Er, thank you for coming…" he began hesitantly. What was he supposed to say? "This is the meeting place for our secret, illegal, Defense club, so if you're in the wrong place, you may want to leave…" It had the desired effect; everyone laughed and Harry felt himself relax.

_Stay calm_, he told himself. _They're all your friends, they don't expect any great, inspiring speech from you._ Wait, what was he saying? Half the people here were girls! And Harry knew how to talk to girls! Sirius and James had made sure of that.

With renewed confidence, Harry continued his welcoming speech.

"Now, as mentioned by the lovely Hermione at our meeting last Saturday-" Here, he gave Hermione a wink, and the females in the audience giggled. "- this secret society will be focused on learning defensive spells and techniques that the all-powerful Ministry deems unfit for us to learn. You've all signed the entry sheet, which means you agree not to give us up to any teacher, at your own peril, so that's no problem. You're free to leave at any time, of course – this isn't some sort of army or anything – but you're advised not to tell anyone of our existence, as you will not be pleased with the consequences of doing so."

Hermione stepped forward, holding the list of names people had signed on Saturday. "Speaking of this list… it looks rather foolish without a title. What should our society be called?"

"Defense Association?" Cho called out, but Harry didn't catch it as he was rather focused on the next suggestion.

"Dumbledore's Army!" Fred shouted, and was met with cheers of approval.

"Not bad," Harry admitted.

"Ooh, I like that," Hermione agreed. "Except… well… the only reason we're having this club is because the Headmaster saddled us with a horrible teacher, willingly or not. It just doesn't seem… I don't know…"

"Proper," Harry supplied. "Plus, if we ever _are_ found out, the Ministry is sure to use the name against Dumbledore if we call it Dumbledore's Army. We need something less incriminating towards the Headmaster."

"What about the Mutant Frogs of Doom?" Tristan suggested from his seat atop a nearby bookshelf.

"Get down from there," Harry scowled. "And that's a horrible name."

"Defense Association!" Cho announced for the second time, giving Harry an irritated look. Harry heard this time, and pondered it for a moment before nudging Hermione.

"What about the Defense Association? DA for short," he asked the bushy-haired brunette, who chewed on the end of her quill thoughtfully.

"I like it," she decided. "Catchy, precise, and hardly incriminating at all. All in favor of calling our club the Defense Association?"

Twenty-seven hands raised in the air. Harry didn't need to look to see which two hadn't agreed.

"All for Mutant Frogs of Doom?" Luna Lovegood spoke up. She and Tristan raised their hands high in the air. Hermione pressed her lips together tightly, obviously trying to stop herself from saying something she'd regret.

"I see the Defense Association wins," she told the two bitingly, and then added unconvincingly, "So sorry." She dipped her quill in her inkpot, and wrote on the top of the sheet with a flourish: The Defense Association.

"Right then," Harry announced. "Time to start the meeting. I thought we could start with the disarming spell, and then maybe work up to stunning spells… yes, Smith?"

Zacharias Smith lowered his hand and sneered at Harry. "What makes you the leader? I think we should vote on it."

A split second later he was hanging upside down in midair with a furious Fred and George standing under him, glaring evilly. Harry immediately jumped forward, waving his wand to set free the prone boy, who collapsed to the floor with a groan. He gave the twins an unimpressed look. They merely continued to glower at the whimpering Ravenclaw.

"Honestly," Hermione snapped, shoving her way to Zacharias's side and pulling him upright with surprising strength. "Zacharias has a point. You didn't need to attack him. We should vote on who leader is – this isn't a dictatorship, after all."

"What's the point on voting?" Ginny demanded. "Harry's the best here. Who else would be as good a teacher as him?" Harry felt a rush of gratitude towards the petite redhead. And a rush of embarrassment as well, but that was neither here nor there.

"Even so," Hermione continued. "All in favor of making Harry our official teacher and leader?" As Ginny had predicted, all hands raised in the air, including Zacharias's, although Harry later suspected Fred and George had somehow forced him to do so. Not that he was complaining.

"Right," Harry said, regaining the podium. "So I think we'll just work on disarming spells tonight, since we've only got about an hour left before lights out. So if everyone could pair up…" The students scrambled to do so as Harry watched silently. Thanks to the odd number of students, everyone except Harry ended up with a partner, which suited him just fine. At his command, everyone began firing the disarming hex at each other, and Harry watched with a sinking heart. They had a _lot_ of work to do before they could even think of going near a Death Eater.

Harry slowly circled the room, giving helpful hints and suggestions to those who needed it, or, in the case of people like Hermione, praising them and encouraging them to keep practicing. 'Practice makes perfect,' became his unofficial motto by the end of the evening.

After watching Hermione knock Ron backwards for the sixth time in a row, Harry cautiously approached the pair he'd been avoiding all evening: Luna Lovegood and Tristan, because they were both completely off their rockers.

Luna flailed her wand wildly, chanting, "Expel! Expel!"

"It's Expelliarmus," Harry suggested helpfully. Luna flashed him a dreamy smile.

"I know how to disarm people," she informed him seriously. "But Tristan is being possessed by malignant spirits. I am trying to exorcise him."

Harry blinked. "Er… sounds good, Luna. Tristan, could you give it a try? Even though you're too young, and aren't supposed to even know about the DA…"

Tristan saluted him seriously, and then began jumping up and down in a crazy dance. "Buttered toads and daffodils! Purple monkeys and octopus!" he sang. Harry didn't bother acting surprised by this; he was too used to the randomness of the Hufflepuff by now.

Then, quicker than the blink of an eye, Tristan shouted in an almost normal voice, "Expelliarmus!" Harry, taken completely by surprise, watched helplessly as his wand flew into Tristan's tiny fist.

"The octopus never sleeps," Tristan informed him gravely, handing him back the holly wand. As he and Luna went back to their… unique method of training, Harry simply shook his head and moved on. He felt there was a lesson to be learned from the situation, but didn't have the energy to contemplate its nature. It'd have to wait for another time.

Finally, nine o'clock rolled around, and Harry wrapped up the meeting with his usual flair.

"Good job, everyone. Er… you can go now."

After Harry closed the Room of Requirement door behind himself, Decimare's voice popped into his mind, giving the black-haired boy orders to proceed directly to the Chamber for sword-training. Harry, exalted with the success of the DA, didn't even bother to argue, and so swept off down the hall towards Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, not bothering with his invisibility cloak because it wasn't curfew for a few more minutes.

Behind him, Ginny Weasley watched her friend separate from the rest of the Gryffindors and head off alone down the corridor. So she did what any curious Gryffindor would do in such a situation: she followed him.

"_Aequus adorior_," Harry ordered his conjured shadow ally as he assumed a defensive position. Decimare's blade glinted dangerously in the green light that filled the magnificent Chamber of Secrets. Harry's mind drifted as he and the shadow dueled, sparks flying every time Decimare and the shadow blade clashed. Their fight took them in an intricate dance across the main floor, around the monolithic serpentine columns, and even up the massive marble staircase Harry had so lovingly created. He was becoming addicted to the feel of blade hitting blade, and knew that he lived for these times in the Chamber, alone with only Decimare and his shadow ally for company.

.:Just imagine what it will be like when you duel a real opponent:. Decimare told his student. .:If you think its intense now, wait till you fight a _real_ blade master:.

With a cry of victory, Harry leapt forward and severed the shadow's head from its shoulders with a sweep of Decimare's razor-sharp blade.

"How was that?" Harry demanded aloud, exhilarated at defeating the shadow, even though he'd done it a few times before. The thrill of victory was just too hard to quash.

.:Decent:. Decimare said dryly. .:Congratulations. You've beaten a shadow whose skill level is equivalent to that of a five-year-old child:.

"Well, it must be one hell of a five year old," Harry snapped. "That thing is stronger than I am!"

.:Regardless:. Decimare said impatiently. .:You've still got a long way to go. Speaking of going, your footwork on the staircase was absolutely appalling. I've seen fish with better balance than you:.

"Fish don't have feet," Harry reminded the sword absently, heading back down to the center of the hall so he could conjure another shadow and try again.

.:Exactly:. Decimare said meaningfully. Harry merely shook his head and pulled out his wand.

"_Umbra Socius_!" Harry chanted, waving his wand in the ancient forms Decimare taught him. As always, eerie black mist, dark as death, drifted out of his wand, and a bone-chilling shriek pierced the air as a shadow figure coalesced on the white marble floor. This time, however, things were a bit different.

"_EEEEEEEEK_!" a female voice shrieked in terror, and Harry spun around to find Ginny Weasley standing at the top of the marble staircase, looking from the shadow figure to Harry with a horrified expression on her normally calm features. Harry hastily muttered, "_Reverto_," which as far as he could tell meant "return", and the shadow dissipated.

"W-what's going on?" Ginny stammered as she inched down the steps. "Why are you in the Chamber of Secrets? And what was that-that thing?"

"It's not what it looks like," Harry assured her, moving as quickly as possible to the shaking girl's side. "I haven't turned evil, don't worry."

"Evil?" she demanded shrilly. "Evil is hardly the word for it! All this time I thought you were a good, brave hero, and in reality you're sneaking down to SLYTHERIN'S SECRET CHAMBER to consort with evil spirits! Give me one good reason why I shouldn't march straight to Dumbledore and turn you in for being a dark wizard!"

Harry rubbed his neck tiredly. "Because I'm _not_ a dark wizard, Ginny. Besides, you don't even know how to get out of the Chamber; you can hardly turn me in if you can't get out. I still can't tell how you got in, in the first place. I could have sworn I sealed the entrance…"

Ginny gave him a flat stare. "I'm the one who opened the Chamber three years ago, idiot. Of course I remember how to work it."

"B-but you aren't a Parselmouth," Harry stuttered.

She rolled her eyes. "I remember the words Tom taught me." Then her gaze hardened, and she pointed her wand at Harry's chest. "Now, tell my why I shouldn't kill you for going to the dark side."

"Because I _didn't_," Harry repeated impatiently. "Ginny, you know me! You should know better than anyone that I wouldn't join the dark side if my life depended on it!"

"Then why were you doing necromancy?" she demanded.

"Huh?" Harry replied intelligently.

.:The _Umbra Socius_ spell is a mild form of necromancy:. Decimare admitted. Ginny jumped backwards when she saw the snake on the hilt of Harry's sword move and hiss.

"What is _that_?" she shrieked. "Where did you get it?"

Harry sighed. Why did this have to happen, when things were going so well?

.:You could always wipe her memory:. Decimare told him gravely. .:I know she is your friend, Master, but you can't trust her:.

'Of course I can' he snapped.

.:Why?:. Decimare asked brutally.

This set Harry back. 'Because… because she's _Ginny_,' he responded lamely. 'I don't know… she's one of the smartest, funniest, prettiest girls I know… why wouldn't I trust her?'

.:You would trust her over Hermione and Ron:. Decimare prodded. .:And prettiness has nothing to do with it:.

'I… well, no, but… I don't want anyone to know! I'm only telling Ginny because she found out by herself!'

Decimare contemplated this for a moment. .:Do what you wish:.

Harry returned his gaze to Ginny, who was watching him cautiously, but also with a small amount of curiosity. "You're talking to the snake on that sword's hilt, aren't you? What's it saying?"

Harry resigned himself to the inevitable. "I'll tell you everything, if you want to hear it."

She peered at him with narrowed, calculating eyes. Finally, she said, "I'd like that. How long is this going to be?"

"Er… well… I'd give it a couple hours," Harry replied with a wince.

She gave him a small smile, but it was enough to make Harry's heart soar. At least she didn't hate him. "Then you'd better start talking."

"What about sleep?" Harry pressed.

She scoffed. "Sleep is overrated. I'm listening, Harry, and this had better be good, or I _am_ going to Dumbledore."

Harry gave her a tired small. "Empty threat, Gin. This chamber recognizes me as its Master, which I'm going to explain to you in a minute. It won't let you out of here without my permission. It might even kill you if you try to hurt me."

She looked stricken. "Really?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't really know, but it's likely. Now, you may want to sit down, 'cause this really will take a while."

The duo settled down on the marble steps, and Ginny placed her wand down on the step, perhaps to show the chamber she wasn't going to harm its Master.

"It all began the day my father was miraculously resurrected, and I left the Dursleys for the last time…"


	28. Life Goes On

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Twenty Eight – Life Goes On

The alarm bells clanged throughout the Sentinel room as the monitors picked up the image of two students sneaking through the halls in the middle of the night. Moments later, a disheveled James Potter stumbled into the security room, wiping the sleep out of his eyes as he oriented on the screen covering the third floor secret tapestry passage. On the monitor, a tiny version of Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley were slipping into the passage, unaware they were being watched. Behind him, the bells became silent as if they too were wondering what the wayward students were up to.

James's hand hovered over the large red button that, when pressed, would signal Sirius to go out and catch the wrongdoers in the act. After a painstaking moment of indecision, he returned the hand to his side. True, the boy was breaking the rules, and it was his job to catch rule-breakers… but Harry was his _son_, and he'd be damned if he betrayed his own flesh and blood.

That boy would be getting a stern talking to tomorrow, though – both on his curfew breaking, as well as the new company he seemed to be keeping. If Harry planned to be sneaking around with a girl after hours, there were a few things James needed to let him in on before the boy made a complete fool of himself… or worse, impregnated her without realizing the consequences. Not that Harry would do something so irresponsible… although seeing as it was Harry, and the boy was absolutely clueless…

Yawning widely, James locked up Sentinel and stumbled back up to his room. He was interrupted on the stairs by a half-asleep Sirius, who'd obviously woken when the alarm had sounded.

"What was it?" Sirius mumbled, scratching his ear in a dog-like manner.

"False alarm," James said. "Go to bed, Padfoot. You look like a zombie."

"Like you should talk," Sirius countered, nevertheless turning and staggering off down the staircase. James merely sighed and resumed his quest for his warm, comfortable, entirely too welcoming bed.

"Goodnight Gin," Harry whispered to the ginger-haired girl as she slowly ascended the girl's dormitory staircase. "Sleep well."

Ginny turned and flashed him a bright smile, looking like nothing so much as an angel in the soft rays of moonlight. "See you tomorrow, Harry," she replied softly, sky blue eyes sparkling. "And that had better be the last of your secrets, because I won't be nearly as accepting next time," she added impishly.

"That's it, I swear," Harry confirmed.

It was only after the girl had proceeded up and out of sight that Harry let out the breath he'd been holding all night.

.:Well, that went better than I expected:. Decimare commented as Harry quietly made his way to the boy's dormitory and slipped into bed. .:She hasn't gone running to Dumbledore yet, and that can't be a bad thing:.

'True enough,' Harry agreed as he pulled the covers up to his chin, reveling in their warmth. 'She believed every word I told her – that's more than can be said for Hermione or Ron… well, Ron, at least.'

He still felt a twinge of guilt, however. While he had told Ginny all about Decimare and his outings in the Chamber of Secrets, he had failed to mention certain other developments… such as his Animagus training, or the strange visions he kept having of Wormtail. It had just seemed like too much, too soon. Plus, he wasn't really sure what was going on with his visions, anyway, and certainly didn't need Ginny worrying about them.

.:From what I understand, that girl has regarded you as her knight in shining armor ever since you saved her life three years ago:. Decimare said. .:Believing every word you say is probably a given for her. I bet if you told her you were actually God himself, she'd be the first member of your cult:.

'You make her sound like a mindless drone,' Harry said reprovingly. 'She's not nearly that bad.'

.:True:. Decimare conceded. .:The fact remains that this was the luckiest break that could have possibly happened:.

"How so?"

.:The shadow ally you conjure is ideal for practicing, no matter what skill level you are at, but it lacks the creative aspect that humans possess:.

Realization quickly dawned. 'You want Ginny to become my training partner.'

.:Essentially:. the snake agreed.

'There's one flaw in your plan,' Harry announced, snuggling deeper into his mound of blankets.

.:What would that be?:.

'She doesn't know how to use a sword,' he said with a scowl.

.:Of course not:. Decimare agreed as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. .:You will teach her how to use one:.

'Me?' Harry exclaimed. 'I can barely use a sword as it is, and you expect me to be able to teach someone else?'

.:Yes:. Decimare agreed, pleased. .:You shall start as soon as possible. I advise you to get some sleep, master. You'll be exhausted tomorrow as it is:.

'Oh, fine,' Harry said resignedly.

The rest of the week passed without incident, excepting a rather puzzling encounter Harry had with his guardians.

"Now, Harry," James began, drawing his son aside from the group of Gryffindors he'd been walking with. "There comes a time in a young man's life when his thoughts turn towards something he never thought of before, something that would one day come to bring him fulfillment, enjoyment, and pleasure."

"Quidditch?" Harry guessed.

"The birds and the bees," Sirius corrected.

"Are those Quidditch teams?"

"You see," James plowed on. "When a boy bird and a girl bird spend time together, they find themselves attracted to one another. And when they are attracted to each other, certain… things occur."

"What are you on about?" Harry demanded in bewilderment.

"The boy and girl birds are different," Sirius explained delicately. "They have different body parts that allow them to… interact."

"Interact?" Harry asked blankly. "Like, talk?"

"Reproduce," James said bluntly, and he and Sirius watched Harry closely to see if he got their meaning.

He hadn't. "So birds are reproducing. What's your point?"

The men exchanged a glance. "So you've never felt like the male bird?" James asked carefully.

"Er… no…"

His guardians seemed incredibly relieved. "Not even when near a female bird?"

Harry gave the duo a seriously disturbed look. "I can assure you I have never had the urge to reproduce with a female bird." He began to back away. "I'm going to go to class now. I suggest you two get some serious therapy as soon as possible."

Two days later, Harry was still trying to figure out his guardian's sudden preoccupation with birds, but thankfully they hadn't mentioned it again, and he was thus content to leave the issue be.

All too soon, Saturday rolled around, signaling the start of Harry's first meeting with Aberforth Dumbledore. With all the excitement of the past week, Harry had almost forgotten about the crazed bartender, but Decimare had reminded him in his usual, pleasant manner.

.:Get your lazy posterior out of bed! You agreed to meet that crazy old coot today, and I will not stand by and watch you make an idiot out of yourself by standing him up:.

To which Harry had replied: '_Silencio_.'

So now he was sneaking across the Hogwarts Entrance Hall, invisibility cloak under his robes, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. As it wasn't a Hogsmeade weekend, he'd be in serious trouble if he were caught sneaking out, so he wanted to keep as low key as possible. He'd decided against using the one-eyed witch passage, as he was fairly sure Sirius and James were monitoring all the secret entrances of Hogwarts. So he was reduced to sneaking out through the bloody Entrance hall, and hoping no one would notice.

His grand plans of escape were dashed when Ginny Weasley popped up in front of him, a knowing twinkle in her eye.

Following his impromptu meeting with Ginny in the Chamber on Wednesday evening, she and Harry had met down there the last two nights, where Harry had began teaching her how to use a sword. Since he only had one real sword, he conjured a wooden sword for her (which she had been suitably impressed by), and she took to the training with a vengeance. It seemed the prospect of learning how to disembowel people made up for all the sleep she would have to lose. She was more bloodthirsty than he'd realized.

"You promised to include me in your adventures from now on, Harry! And now you're sneaking out of Hogwarts without telling me-"

Harry clapped a hand over the redhead's mouth before she announced anything else incriminating to anyone who might be listening.

"_Mmph_!" she protested as Harry dragged her into the nearest deserted room. "What was that for?" she snapped indignantly as soon as Harry released her.

"You can't talk like that in the open!" Harry hissed.

Ginny frowned stubbornly. "Well, you should have told me you were leaving! What if you were kidnapped, and no one knew where you were?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "I'm going to Hogsmeade, Gin, not Voldemort's secret lair. Besides, where else would I sneak off to? There isn't anything around for hundreds of miles."

"Well, you should have told me anyway," Ginny scolded. "You can keep all the secrets you want, but you had _better_ tell me next time you leave the school, understand? I couldn't live with myself if you got hurt because you were too stupid to tell me where you were going!"

"Wouldn't it be my own fault, then?"

"Harry!"

Harry raised his hands in defeat. "Yes ma'am."

She switched from scowl to smile in the blink of an eye. "Great! I'll see you later then, alright? Have fun in Hogsmeade! Bring me back some candy or something." Most unexpectedly, she leaned forward, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and skipped off down the hall.

_Talk about mood swings_, Harry thought with a shake of his head as he pulled on his invisibility cloak and disappeared from view. Sneaking out of the school was a relatively simple matter (it seemed James and Sirius's security system still needed a little work), and soon Harry found himself at the Hogs Head pub, where he shed the cloak and approached the counter cautiously.

"Er… hello," Harry greeted the barman, a man he now knew as Aberforth Dumbledore. The wild-haired old man gave Harry a displeased look, before grabbing the teen and dragging him behind the counter.

"Where's your sense of secrecy, boy?" he growled, taking Harry by the shoulder and propelling him out of the room and up the rickety old staircase. Shoving him into an unoccupied room, Aberforth shut the door and turned a fierce glare on the bewildered boy.

"What did I do?" Harry asked blankly.

"You don't just walk into a public place, undisguised, when you've got a death sentence on your head!" he bellowed.

"But I haven't," Harry protested.

The man gave him an incredulous look. "The Dark Lord has been after your fool head since the day you were born. You're telling me that that isn't a death sentence?"

"Well, I suppose…"

"From now on you will be in my pub by 10 am every Saturday," Aberforth ordered. "You will be disguised in some form, and if I can figure out it's you within five minutes, I will be extremely displeased. Understood?"

It sounded absolutely batty to Harry, but Decimare seemed to believe he could learn something from this man, so Harry nodded his agreement.

"Good," Aberforth declared. "Now, shall we begin?"

"Uh… sure…" Harry agreed, slowly drawing his wand.

"Put it away," Aberforth immediately ordered. Harry gave him an uncertain look. "Now," he growled. The wand returned quickly to Harry's pocket.

"So… if we aren't dueling, what will we be doing?" Harry asked carefully.

"Hogwarts teaches you the physical stuff – I will teach you the mental portion."

"Mental?"

Aberforth gave the boy a strange smile. "Ethics, morals, call it what you will. Today we learn about Respect, one of the essential elements of your Character."

"Huh?" Harry said intelligently.

"Respect, Integrity, Honesty, Responsibility, Fairness, Optimism, Empathy, Initiative, Courage, and Perseverance," Aberforth explained. "The ten elements that make up who you are, and guide the way you live."

And so their first lesson began. Harry quickly discovered that something as simple as respect was a hell of a lot more complicated than he'd thought.

"What does 'respect' mean?" Aberforth asked, easing himself down to an old armchair and piercing Harry with his unsettling gaze.

Harry carefully sat down across from his new teacher. "Being polite and proper towards others, and valuing their opinions," Harry guessed.

Aberforth nodded, and Harry felt a surge of pride. Then the old man asked, "Who do you respect?"

That one was easy. "My teachers, my father and godfather, my friends…"

Aberforth raised an eyebrow in interest. "_Reeeeeally_? You respect Professor Snape?"

Harry studied him carefully for a moment before answering. "I hate his guts, if that's what you mean, but I do respect him."

"So you treat him politely and properly, and value his opinion, treating him with deference at every turn?"

"No…"

"But according to you, that is how you treat someone you respect. Yet you do not treat Snape, a man you claim to respect, in that way. It seems there is a flaw in your reasoning."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "Fine. I don't respect Snape."

"Yet you listen to him and do as he says," Aberforth pointed out. "Doesn't that imply that you respect him?"

"I follow his orders because he's my teacher and I have to!" Harry exclaimed.

"Why?"

"Because he's my professor! If I want to learn from him, I have to follow his rules."

"So you respect this man for his teaching ability, but not for himself as a person," Aberforth clarified.

"Right," Harry agreed, glad the man understood.

"But according to you, he's a horrible teacher, isn't he?"

"Yeah…"

"So why do you respect him as a professor if he's a complete failure at it?"

Harry blinked. "I… I don't know. I guess I don't respect him at all – in fact, I hate him. I only listen to him because I'd be thrown out if I didn't," Harry explained.

Aberforth smiled. "I see you've got it all figured out."

"I have," Harry agreed. "I only respect people who deserve my respect, and Snape isn't one of them. I don't care what he thinks or does anymore, because I don't respect him."

The old man's blue eyes twinkled in a rather unsettling way. "What a clever boy you are," he mocked. Harry sighed.

"I'm missing something, aren't I?"

"I don't know, you tell me," Aberforth replied in that infuriating way that reminded Harry so much of his Headmaster.

"Just tell me what fool thing I did so you can scold me for it and make me feel like an idiot," Harry muttered.

"Fine. But first… do you respect the Dark Lord?"

That one took him by surprise. But before Harry blurted out an answer he knew he'd regret, he did something quite out of character, and actually thought about the question before answering.

"Yes," he said finally. "I respect him as an adversary, and as an intelligent man, even if he's an evil git. In fact, I think everyone deserves respect of some sort. I was wrong about Snape – I don't respect him as a teacher, but I do respect him as a Potions master. Respect doesn't mean blind obedience, it means acknowledging other's achievements and appreciating the things they're good at."

.:Not bad:. Decimare complimented in that roundabout way of his. .:You may make me proud yet:.

But Aberforth still wasn't done. "So you retract your prior statement, that respect means being polite and proper to others, and valuing their opinions?"

"Yes," Harry agreed. "It's complete different than that, yet does incorporate some of the same aspects."

Aberforth grinned. "Perhaps there isn't as much mush in your head as I thought. Did my questions alter your way of thinking?"

"Absolutely," Harry agreed fervently.

"Excellent," Aberforth exclaimed, pleased. "Why don't you go get some lunch and meet me back here in an hour?"

"Sure," Harry agreed.

"Good. Then we can work on destroying your last shards of innocence."

"_What_?"

"You are far too innocent for my liking, I'm afraid."

"I happen to enjoy being innocent," Harry snapped, not entirely certain what he was arguing about.

"Of course you do," Aberforth agreed. "But you're entirely too trusting, and that will have to change."

Harry gave it up as a bad job. "Fine."

To his surprise, Aberforth seemed displeased. "You see? You automatically trust that I known what's best for you, even though you barely know me! I could be a Death Eater, for God's sake!"

"Didn't we go over this last week?" Harry wondered.

"You can never question your beliefs and values too much!" Aberforth roared. Harry winced and backed away from the crazy old geezer. He needn't have, however, for the man's moodshifts were as eclectic as his hairstyle.

"Never mind," Aberforth decided, suddenly calm and unruffled. "I cannot teach you anymore this day."

"So we're through?" Harry asked.

"That's right," Aberforth agreed, glowering. "Be back here next Saturday, Potter, and I'll teach you more. Try to learn some respect between now and then. Good day."

He swept out of the room, leaving a completely bewildered boy behind him. Harry was incredibly confused; he'd thought the man was finished teaching him permanently, but apparently he was just through teaching him for today. Unsure what to make of it, Harry settled with being incredibly confused, and made his way out of the room.

The next few weeks passed in a blur for Harry. He was kept busy with normal things, such as school work and detentions, but also with meetings with Aberforth, sword training with Decimare and Ginny, Animagus practice, Quidditch practice, and, of course, DA meetings.

Perhaps the most enjoyable times were spent with Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets, teaching her to duel with wooden practice swords, and gaining valuable experience himself. To his delight, she seemed to have a natural aptitude for the longsword, and progressed rapidly in her training until about a month in, when she was able to give Harry a run for his money.

But as the days grew colder, Harry's thoughts turned less from school and training, and more towards the upcoming Quidditch match between Slytherin and Gryffindor. Tensions grew high as the match drew closer, and by the time it was a week away, the animosity between the two houses grew to unbearable heights.

As the Seeker, Harry would have gotten the worst of it, except that through his excessive amounts of training, his talent for sidestepping trouble had increased tenfold. Which generally meant he could dodge or deflect most hexes the Slytherins sent at him. This resulted in much embarrassment on the attackers' part. He still fondly recalled Malfoy's latest failed attempt to humiliate him.

Harry had been walking down the hall talking to Ron, when Malfoy had jumped out and tried to curse him. Harry easily sent the curse spinning back at the blonde, who just barely dodged it.

"You think you're all that, Potter," Malfoy had sneered. "You're going to be so injured by the time you get off the field next Saturday that you won't even be able to plead for mercy!"

The blonde then sent a rather illegal curse spiraling at Harry, who effortlessly deflected it back at Malfoy. This time the curse connected, and a humiliated Malfoy had been carted off to the hospital wing with three broken bones and the laughter of his classmates lingering in his ears.

So Harry had emerged relatively unscathed from the Slytherins' campaign to put him out of commission… but Ron wasn't as lucky. Unused to the constant negative attention, Ron was considerably put off by the Slytherin's antics, and where Harry would have laughed an insult off, Ron took it to heart. Harry wasn't sure his friend would last long enough to make it to the match.

Three days before the match, the Slytherins finally stepped over the line. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were heading for the Herbology greenhouses when Crabbe, Goyle, and Blaise Zabini had turned up for another round of Gryffindor abuse.

"We're gonna pound your face in, Weasley," Goyle grunted in his usual idiotic manner. "You've got three more days to enjoy life, and then you're _ours_…"

Ron paled. Ginny, never one to be intimidated, rolled her eyes and retorted, "Some threat that is. You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn."

Zabini turned on the redhead with a vicious sneer. "Watch yourself, slut, or I'll wring your scrawny little neck."

The words had barely registered in Harry's mind before his world turned red, and his fist shot forward to connect firmly with the boy's sneering face. Zabini was knocked onto the floor, and he screamed in pain as his nose broke with a crack.

"You can insult me and friends as much as you like," Harry snarled. "But if you ever _dare_ to threaten Ginny again, you'll be waking up in the hospital wing."

"Is that a threat, Potter?" Crabbe demanded.

"No, it's a promise." Harry drew his wand with a murderous glint in his eyes. Zabini gave him a petrified look, before staggering to his feet and sprinting off down the hall, Crabbe and Goyle at his heels.

"Harry…" Ginny whispered in shock. He ignored her and stalked off without a word. His three friends stood, dumbstruck, at their friend's sudden display of anger and… protectiveness? It was no secret to the trio that Harry had used only Ginny's name in his threat, and not everyone's.

"Talk about overprotectiveness," Ron finally muttered. Hermione nodded in agreement. Ginny simply stood there, unsure whether to be flattered or furious with Harry for defending her. She opted for the former.

"Harry, wait!" she cried as she sprinted off after the black-haired boy. He disappeared around the corner of the corridor, but when she rounded it, she saw him leaning against the wall, obviously waiting for her. She noted with some trepidation that he was still seething from Zabini's words.

"Calm down, Harry," Ginny said soothingly. "He didn't mean it. He was just trying to act tough in front of his friends."

"He didn't mean it now, but what about in a few years when he joins the Death Eaters? Then he'd kill you without a second thought," he replied darkly.

"But you didn't have to hit him," Ginny reprimanded.

Harry shrugged. "You didn't have to insult him."

The two glared at each other for a moment, before Ginny was unable to contain herself, and burst out laughing. Harry gave her a bewildered look.

"I'm sorry," she choked. "It just seems so silly that we're arguing over something so stupid." She calmed herself. "Thank you for defending me, Harry, but I _can_ take care of myself."

"I know you can!" Harry replied earnestly. "I was just… worried about you."

"Why?" Ginny demanded hotly. "Because I'm a helpless little girl?"

"Because I care about you, alright?" Harry shouted, before realizing what he was saying. Ginny gaped at him.

"What are you saying?" she asked carefully.

Harry ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "I don't know what I'm saying."

.:And with one glance at her big blue eyes, all rational thought flies from my Master's mind:. Decimare sighed.

Ginny stepped closer. "What do you think of me?" she asked quietly, her perfume slowly overwhelming Harry's senses as she leaned towards him.

Harry gulped. "You're nice… and intelligent… and beautiful…" They were almost touching now, and as Harry gazed deeply into Ginny's gorgeous eyes, he finally realized what it was he'd been feeling for her all along.

Nerving himself, Harry leaned forward and captured Ginny's lips in a gentle kiss. Her eyelids fluttered close as she slowly responded, almost melting into Harry's arms as they were carried into a world of their own.

Harry reluctantly broke the kiss, and a comfortable silence filled the tiny corridor as they gazed into each other's eyes.

"Does that mean what I think it means?" Ginny asked breathlessly.

Harry gave her a hesitant smile. "I am looking for a girlfriend… that is, if you're interested…"

"Only if you are," she replied with a grin.

"Er…" Harry stammered. "I can't really be your girlfriend, as I'm a… er… boy, but…"

.:Do stop your ceaseless babbling:. Decimare groaned.

Ginny cut him off with another kiss. When they came up for air, Harry was pretty sure he knew Ginny's answer.

"Is that a yes, then?"

"I suppose so," she agreed.

Harry blinked. "Well… good, then…"

They stared at each other for a moment.

.:This is the part where you kiss her senseless:. Decimare prompted.

Harry blushingly did so. After they pulled apart, Ginny gave him a brilliant smile.

"Well, darling, I have to get to class now, but I'll meet you this evening in the Chamber, alright?"

"Er… sure…" Harry agreed, thrown by the unexpected nickname. She laughed and pecked him on the cheek, before skipping off down the corridor. Harry stared after her, still rather confused by the whole thing.

.:Well, that went well:. Decimare opined. .:You didn't embarrass yourself nearly as much as I thought you would:.

'Your confidence in me is inspiring,' Harry replied, more out of habit, as he was currently on cloud nine. He was pretty sure that if it were possible, little hearts would be floating around his head.

.:Well, this is a fortunate turn of events:. Decimare announced. .:Now that you two blockheads have finally sorted your feelings out, you can get over your ridiculous nervousness and make better progress on your training:.

Trust Decimare to exploit Harry and Ginny's newfound relationship for his own, twisted ends. Shaking his head with a sigh, Harry turned on his heel and marched off to Herbology.


	29. Gryffindor vs Slytherin

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Twenty Nine – Gryffindor vs. Slytherin

The day of the Gryffindor/Slytherin match dawned bright and early, and Harry woke to the sweet chirping of birds filling his ears, even though it was November, and by all rights the birds should be hibernating by now. Then again, Hogwarts was a magical place, so birds' evading natural hibernation patterns wasn't such an odd concept after all.

Harry promptly fell back asleep.

He was woken up an hour later by a harassed-looking Ron, who was so afraid his Seeker was going to sleep through the match that he poured what seemed like the entire Hogwarts Lake over Harry's sleeping form.

"What the…" Harry spluttered as he was jolted unhappily awake. Looking up and seeing Ron standing over his bed holding a pail, with a guilty look on his face, it didn't take long to put two and two together.

"Er… sorry, Harry…" Ron mumbled.

Ron emerged from the boys' dormitories five minutes later, beaten, bruised, and soaking wet from head to toe. Ginny looked up as her brother entered the Common Room, and whistled under her breath.

"Geez, Ron, what'd you do, fall in the lake?"

"Funny," Ron snapped, flopping down in front of the fireplace and prostrating himself on the floor in an attempt to soak up as much heat as possible. "You'd think I killed him or something, the way he reacted," he sulked.

Ginny rose from her armchair, stretched with a huge yawn, and plopped down on the floor beside her brother. "What'd you do to Harry?" she asked knowingly.

"I dumped a pail of water on his head," Ron replied sullenly.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "You're lucky you got off so easily, then. The last person who dared do that ended up in the Hospital wing for a week."

Ron blanched. "Really?"

She snickered. "Did you know that the word 'gullible' isn't in the dictionary?"

"I had no idea," Ron said, still looking rather scared at the thought of being sent to the hospital wing for waking up his roommate. "Hand me a dictionary, would you?"

Ginny just sighed.

"Morning," Ginny whispered, giving Harry a discreet kiss on the cheek as he slid in beside her at the Gryffindor table. "You nervous?"

"Hardly," Harry replied with a cocky grin. "It's just Slytherin, after all, not a _real_ team like Ravenclaw." A passing group of Slytherins flushed in fury and scurried off to their table, probably to report to Malfoy and the rest of the team what they'd heard.

"That wasn't nice," Ginny chided, piling pancakes onto her boyfriend's plate, which he immediately dug into. "Hungry?"

"Starving," Harry agreed. "I always get hungry when I miss a lot of sleep…"

"Tell me about it," Ginny said, biting into her own mound of French toast. "I think I got an hour of sleep last night, tops."

"Really?" Hermione asked in interest as she and Ron joined the duo. "What were you doing last night?"

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "You weren't in bed when I went to sleep." He reflected on this. "Then again, you usually aren't."

"I was busy," Harry replied evasively.

"Me as well," Ginny chimed in.

Hermione and Ron exchanged a suspicious look, but before they could comment, Fred and George burst through the Great Hall doors, singing loudly, "We are the Champions," to the delight of all – well, the Gryffindor supporters, anyway. The song swelled through the hall as students joined in, and even Harry jumped in at the chorus, pulled along by the overwhelming display of team spirit, despite Hermione's disapproving frown.

Professor McGonagall finally quieted the students down, and the hall returned to its previous state of relative peace. Now that the fun was over, however, Ron was in the clutches of a full-blown panic attack.

As the redhead began to hyperventilate, Harry asked in interest: "What's wrong with him?"

"I suspect he's a tad nervous about today's match," Hermione speculated, rubbing Ron's back as he gasped for air. "Breath, Ronald, you aren't going to get out of the match that easily."

"I should never have joined the team!" Ron moaned. "What was I thinking? I'm horrible!"

"Course you're not," Harry said absently, rather distracted by the way Ginny's hair glinted in the sunlight.

"He's right, mate," Fred chimed in as he and George plopped down a few seats over. "You'll be fine."

"You'll be more than fine," George added. "You're a Weasley. Although we've denied it for years, you've still got the winner's blood in you, and it's going to bring us to victory."

"Now shut up and eat something before we pound you," they chorused in that pleasant way of theirs, and turned back to their previous conversation.

"Gits," Ron muttered. "Always could count on them to cheer me up when I needed it."

"It's just their way of showing affection," Hermione explained, although she seemed a little unsure. "Unless they genuinely do enjoy making you suffer, at which point I suggest you lock them up in a nuthouse."

Such a ludicrous suggestion, coming from Hermione of all people, was enough to calm Ron down so that he could eat his breakfast without immediately regurgitating it. When the meal was over, Angelina jumped up on the table and shouted: "Gryffindor team, meet me on the pitch in five!"

Whatever semblance of calm was gone again, and Ron reverted to hyperventilating. Harry felt guilty about abandoning his friend, but he had to get down to the pitch – besides, he wanted a few minutes alone to get a good luck kiss from his girlfriend. As Ron miserably watched them depart, he was completely shocked when Hermione leant up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.

"For good luck," she explained, and Ron was so overwhelmed he forgot to be nervous.

Harry and Ginny reached the Quidditch Pitch just as the stands were beginning to fill with eager spectators. To his delight, Ginny grabbed his arm and pulled him aside into a deserted equipment room, and within seconds her lips were on his, and all thoughts of Quidditch flew from his mind.

When they finally came up for air, Harry asked dazedly, "What was that for?"

"A good luck kiss," Ginny said impishly. "You're going to need it." She became much more serious. "Slytherin is going to do everything in their power to take you out, Harry. Promise me you'll be careful?"

"I'll try," was the most assurance he could give her.

"Good," she proclaimed, "because if you get hurt, I won't speak to you for a week."

Harry gaped at the redhead. "How does that work? That doesn't make sense!"

She regarded him with a superior air. "I'm a girl, Harry. I don't have to make sense. Now, go out there and catch the Snitch!"

"That, I can do," Harry agreed.

As Harry waved a last time at Ginny and rounded the corner to the changing rooms, a small figure popped up in front of him, forcing him to halt so as not to run the person over.

"What the… oh…" Harry trailed off. "Tristan. What do you want?"

"I have come to wish you luck," Tristan told him solemnly. "The toad is black. Beware the toad, for it knows all."

"Er… thanks, I guess…" Harry stammered, unsure of quite what to say. "I'd better get to the changing rooms…"

"Yes," Tristan agreed. "For though the spotted giraffe may fly, it is the hippopotamus that ascends to greatness."

"That's very nice," Harry said politely, edging away. "I'll ponder your words deeply, don't worry."

Tristan seemed inordinately pleased about that, for some strange reason, but before Harry could inquire, the kid cackled insanely, swirled his yellow cape about himself, and disappeared.

No, wait, he'd simply jumped behind the corner of the building. Shaking his head in exasperation, Harry pushed all thoughts of spots and toads from his mind and focused on getting to the changing room without going insane first.

"Welcome to Hogwarts' first Quidditch match of the year, Gryffindor vs. Slytherin!" Lee Jordan bellowed, the sound magically expanding throughout the massive stadium as the crowd cheered wildly. "I don't know about you all, but I can't wait for the game to get going! It's been so long since I've seen a proper Quidditch match, what with all that nonsense about fake DADA teachers and Death Eaters in disguise…"

Lee Jordan trailed off as Professor McGonagall snatched the mike from his hand and walloped him soundly on the head with it. There was some muffled cursing from the announcer's box, before the boy re-acquired the mike and announced somewhat shakily, "Okay folks, apparently all information pertaining to the events surrounding the Triwizard Tournament Third Task is strictly taboo, so we'll get on with the main event."

The stadium rocked with laughter as Lee ducked to avoid McGonagall's furious swipe at the term "taboo". Harry shook his head and exchanged an amused glance with Ron as they and the Gryffindor team marched out onto the pitch.

"And the Gryffindors have entered the house! Let's give the lions a round of applause!" Lee roared, and the crowd responded enthusiastically. Then Draco Malfoy and the Slytherin team arrived, and Lee led the Gryffindors in a round of "boos" before McGonagall quieted them with a threat to expel the entire house should the "impoliteness" continue.

"Players ready?" Madam Hooch said, Quaffle in one hand and the other hovering over the Bludger crate's latch. "Captains, shake hands."

Angelina and Malfoy converged over the center line, both clearly wanting to get the physical contact over with as quickly as possible. They shook hands, and as Angelina marched back to her team, Harry noticed her wincing and clenching and unclenching her hand as if in pain. Trust Malfoy to try and break their Captain's fingers right before the match.

"Begin!" Madam Hooch shouted, and at the trill of her whistle both teams shot into the air and scattered, Ron heading for the goal posts, the Chasers and Beaters towards the Quaffle and Bludgers, and Harry… disappeared.

At least that's how it appeared to the spectators – the Gryffindor Seeker vanished into thin air, leaving Malfoy hovering a foot above the ground searching the skies furiously for his opponent. In truth, Harry had simply kicked his broom into overdrive, so to speak, and shot off at breakneck speed straight upwards faster than the audience could blink. He continued upwards until the pitch was like a miniature model in his eyes, like the kinds Dudley used to build, and then summarily destroy, when he was younger.

The purpose of this tactic? It didn't help out his team much, nor did it give him a better chance to see the Snitch… but what it did do was annoy the hell out of Malfoy. Harry almost fell off his broom laughing as he watched the tiny green blur that was Malfoy shoot madly around the pitch in a desperate attempt to find him, as if expecting Harry would suddenly appear before him, Snitch in hand.

Now a minute into the game, Harry figured it was time to cease teasing Malfoy and get back in play. So he kicked back his heels and rocketed down towards the stadium floor, grinning as he heard the spectators' exuberant cheering and applause at the maneuver.

As he pulled out of the dive, Angelina shot past him, Quaffle in hand, and she shouted as she went, "You've had your fun, now find the bloody Snitch, Potter!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Yes, ma'am." With an exaggerated huff of exasperation, Harry pulled the broom around and shot off in search of the elusive Snitch.

Ten Snitch-less minutes later, Harry was becoming seriously concerned about the outcome of the match. Not that Ron wasn't a great guy all around… but as a Keeper, Harry was forced to admit his friend wasn't all that talented. Scratch that. Ron had missed every single throw that came his way, sometimes failing so spectacularly that the audience burst into applause, even though they were losing. Harry resisted the urge to strangle the redhead.

"Ron," Harry said through gritted teeth as he flew up to the grim Keeper. "I realize that you want to put on a show, but the time to start saving some goals would be _now_."

"I'm working on it," Ron snapped, ears red. "I just can't concentrate with everyone watching me."

"Would you like me to have them all turn around every time the Slytherins try to score?" Harry demanded incredulously.

"If it would help," Ron growled. "Go find the bloody Snitch, Harry, and leave me to my doom."

"Melodramatic much?" Harry said with a roll of his eyes, flying off to do as he was told. Lord knew he needed to catch the Snitch soon, because the Gryffindor Chasers weren't scoring, and the Keeper wasn't saving. Looked like victory depended in him, once again. Typical.

The game flew by in a blur as Harry and Malfoy raced neck to neck around the stadium, furiously attempting to out-do each other with fancy tricks and stunts, since the Snitch absolutely refused to show its face. Just as Malfoy was about to physically attack Harry for outdoing him on a triple sloth-grip roll, no-handed, Harry shot off like a bullet, leaving Malfoy hanging in midair, blinking in confusion. It only took the blonde a second to get his act together and follow.

The crowd cheered wildly as the two Seekers flew in hot pursuit of the little winged ball. Round and round they flew, up, down, and sideways, before they finally pulled out to fly straight ahead, with only pure speed determining the outcome of the race. It was then that Harry's Firebolt showed its superiority over Malfoy's outdated Nimbus, and Harry shot ahead to snatch the Snitch triumphantly out of the air.

"Potter! Gryffindor! Potter!" the crowd chanted exuberantly as Harry spiraled down to the stadium floor, holding the Snitch aloft like a trophy, a million-watt grin on his face.

"Harry!" he heard a feminine voice shriek, and the next instant Ginny was in his arms, kissing him soundly as the audience laughed.

"Potter!" Ron bellowed, as he, Fred, and George watched Harry embrace their little sister. Harry and Ginny had neglected to mention their newfound relationship to the Weasley brothers, thus it came as a bit of a shock when the duo were suddenly standing in the middle of the Quidditch pitch making out like there was no tomorrow.

"What's with people shouting my name?" Harry asked with a grin as he drew away from his ecstatic girlfriend. "I must be pretty popular today."

"It could be because you saved our collective butt from a humiliating defeat," Ginny laughed, hugging Harry impulsively. "You were fantastic!"

"I'm not sure fantastic is the word for it," a new voice drawled contemptuously. "More like… pathetic."

"Leave, Malfoy," Harry ordered the sneering blond. "I refuse to have my good mood spoiled by your presence."

If Harry thought that was the end of it, he was sadly mistaken. Malfoy flushed with fury, before snapping, "At least you didn't prove a complete failure in this game, Potter. I can't say the same of your teammates, though. Lord, if I'd bet on Weasley's goalkeeping skills, I'd have lost so much money I'd be poorer than their entire family."

All the Weasleys present bristled and glared at the sneering Slytherin. "Watch what you say," Fred warned darkly.

"Or you'll find yourself unable to say anything, every again," George added. Malfoy just stared blankly at them.

"You'll be dead," Fred elaborated, and Malfoy shrank back unconsciously as the two older, much, much taller boys glared down at him. Harry had never seen the twins this menacing in appearance, and he didn't want to ever again.

Malfoy recovered his confidence and snarled, "Think you're all that, do you? I saw an article in the Daily Prophet about your parents' interview about Potter's trial during the summer. There was a picture in there of your house… if you can call it a house."

"Watch it, Malfoy," Ron snarled, leaning forward.

Malfoy's eyes glistened maliciously. "Your mum's getting a bit porky, isn't she? You'd think with all the action she's getting from your father, she'd have less time to eat…"

Fred and George exchanged a glance of outrage at the double-barreled insult, before lunging forward with identical war cries. They were held back by Angelina, Alicia, and Katie, who were in over their head, and needed Ron's assistance to hold the twins, although Ron was clearly torn between helping prevent a murder, and committing one himself.

Malfoy cackled. "What's the matter? Can't face facts?"

"Shut up, Malfoy," Harry snapped, fingers itching to draw Decimare and slice the bastard's head off. He could do it easily – it was a question of whether or not he fancied being locked in Azkaban for the rest of his natural life.

"I can't blame you for getting so offended, Potter," Malfoy said. "I bet your mum was pretty fat too… oh, wait, I forgot… she's _dead_, isn't she? Good riddance to all the Mudbloods, I say."

That was it. Harry snapped. Malfoy could throw as many insults at him as he wanted, but insulting his _mother_… he saw red. Lunging forward, Harry flew at Malfoy with a string of expletives Sirius would have been proud of, the movement sudden enough to catch the Gryffindor Chasers off guard for a split second. This allowed Fred and George the chance to also leap forward, and together the trio laid into Malfoy, getting him back for every cruel thing he'd ever said with their fists.

.:Master, stop!:. Decimare yelled, but Harry could barely hear it as rage enveloped him. .:You must not give in to hatred! At the risk of sounding hopelessly clichéd, Master, hatred leads to the Dark side:.

.:You idiot:. the spirit added as an afterthought.

Harry didn't even register the words as the trio continued to pound Malfoy into a bloody pulp. The surrounding students didn't lift a finger to stop them; they all felt Malfoy was getting what he deserved. The teachers, however, were not of the same opinion.

"Expelliarmus!" Madam Hooch shrieked, and the four struggling boys went flying in different directions as the spell collided with them.

Unlike Fred, George, and Malfoy, who crashed into the ground with all the grace of a brick, Harry spun around in midair and landed lightly on his feet, hand moving to pull Decimare free of his scabbard. It was not intentional; Decimare had drilled such maneuvers into him a thousand times during practice, and Harry now drew the sword whenever danger was near by default. Unfortunately for him, this wasn't the Chamber of Secrets, and he wasn't alone with Ginny and Decimare, but in a crowded stadium full of people.

.:_STOP!_:. Decimare bellowed. It was the loudest Harry had ever heard the snake speak. .:Do not draw that sword if you value any of the work we've done over the past five months, Master:.

Harry stopped the hand an inch from the snake ring on his finger. 'I really blew it, didn't I?' he groaned to the snake, eyes narrowing as Professor McGonagall stalked towards him. 'How bad was it?'

.:I suspect the Malfoy brat will be in the hospital wing for at least two weeks:. Decimare snapped. .:I highly disapprove of your actions, Master, but…:.

'But?'

.:At least I've taught you enough so that when you set your mind to doing something, you do it right:. Decimare approved reluctantly. .:I don't believe I've ever seen someone of your stature injure an individual as grievously as you did Mister Malfoy:.

'He'll be feeling those punches for weeks to come,' Harry thought, pleased, as McGonagall finally made her way up to him. Fred and George trailed along behind her, both thoroughly rebuked for their actions, although neither seemed particularly apologetic. Malfoy was already in a stretcher being carted off to the hospital wing.

"Mister Potter! What do you think you were doing?" McGonagall screeched, nowhere near her usual composed self. "Brawling in public like Muggles! You are old enough to know that violence will not solve any problems!"

Harry just stared defiantly at her. McGonagall glared furiously and spun around to face the Weasley twins. "Proceed to my office this instant. You too, Potter. I will deal with you there." Then, to herself, "In _all_ my years of teaching, _never_ have I seen such immaturity…"

Ignoring the frightened looks he was getting from his friends, Harry trudged along obediently behind McGonagall. If she expected him to be sorry for what he'd done, she was sadly mistaken. Harry wasn't worried; she was too fair-minded to expel them for attacking Malfoy, although Lord knows he deserved it, but it was clear their punishment would be harsh. It was totally worth it, though.

The quartet marched silently up to McGonagall's office, where she gestured for them to stand in front of her desk. Seating herself at her desk, she turned a disgusted look upon them before beginning her lecture.

"What on _earth_ were you three thinking?" she berated. "Attacking Mister Malfoy in the middle of the Quidditch Pitch! Do you _want_ to be expelled?"

"No," Harry, Fred, and George chorused quietly.

"Well, you certainly came off that way! What possessed you to do such a stupid and immature thing!"

"Malfoy insulted our mother, Professor," Fred explained eagerly.

"As well as Harry's," George added.

"Be that as it may, it gave you no right to jump on him."

"He provoked us," Harry said stiffly.

.:That's no excuse:. Decimare hissed reprovingly.

"That's no excuse!" McGonagall snapped, unknowingly echoing the snake's words. "Of course he provoked you! He'd just lost the match! He was furious! What else would you expect _Draco Malfoy _to do!"

"Could you use some help, Minerva?" a simpering voice came out of nowhere, and all four's eyes darted to the pink-clad, squat figure at the door.

"No, thank you, Dolores," McGonagall said tightly. "I believe I can handle the discipline of students in my own house."

"I will help you," Umbridge decided, strutting forward pompously, much like Minister Fudge often did.

"Thank you," McGonagall repeated, nostrils flaring. "But I will handle it."

"No, you won't," Umbridge said pleasantly. "Not with the new Ministry Decree. You see, I banned the Gryffindor Quidditch team from playing because I knew something like this would happen, yet you went behind my back and somehow convinced the Headmaster to overturn my decision. That will not happen any longer. The new Ministry Decree has created a new post: The Hogwarts High Inquisitor."

"The what?"

"High Inquisitor. And I am she," Umbridge said sweetly. "That means that I have more authority than any teacher in this school. Meaning, Minerva, that I will be deciding these boys' punishments."

"This is outrageous," McGonagall snarled. "The Headmaster would never allow you this level of control."

"The Headmaster has no choice," Umbridge simpered. "This is a Ministry decision. Now, about these darling children's punishment."

Harry, Fred, and George waited silently, wondering how many points they were going to lose for this escapade. And how many months they would spend in detention.

"I am removing one hundred points from Gryffindor house," Umbridge stated.

The trio exchanged a glance. One hundred wasn't too bad, all things considered.

"You will each receive a month of detentions."

Fair enough.

"And you will be banned from Quidditch at this school for life."

_What_?

"You can't do that!" Harry exclaimed.

Umbridge smirked victoriously. "Oh yes I can, Potter. I am the High Inquisitor. I'll do what I like."

"That's unfair!" Fred snapped. "What about Malfoy?"

"What about him?" Umbridge said.

"He's at much at fault as we are!" George said. "How long is he getting banned for?"

Umbridge seemed genuinely surprised. "Why, no time at all, naturally. He's an innocent in all of this."

"That's ridiculous!" McGonagall said furiously, unable to contain herself. "Malfoy is the farthest thing from innocent, Dolores!"

"Mister Malfoy is the one in the hospital wing," Umbridge said succinctly. That was really all the proof she needed, if asked to justify her decision to the Ministry.

.:Can she really ban you from your broomstick game?:. Decimare asked as Harry fumed silently.

'It appears so,' he replied furiously.

.:This woman is a disgrace to your kind:. Decimare pronounced. .:She has no sense of right or wrong. You will not accept orders from such a woman:.

'I don't have much of a choice,' Harry reminded him.

.:Nonsense. You aren't allowed in the Chamber, yet you visit almost every night. You are not allowed to have a weapon in school, yet here I am. You are not allowed to become an Animagus without registering, and you are almost finished your transformation. You are not allowed to use magic during the summer, yet you violated that every day:.

'So?'

.:So if you can break all those rules because you believe doing what you wish is more important than following orders, then why are you taking this nonsense from Madam Umbridge?:.

'What do you want me to do? Say, "No, I'm not listening to you" and just walk away?' Harry demanded incredulously.

.:I was thinking more along the lines of taking a stand:. Decimare corrected. .:If you simply refuse to accept her punishment, and walk away, Dumbledore will have to suspend you for misconduct towards a teacher. If you give them an ultimatum…:.

'Like what? Get rid of Umbridge or I won't kill Voldemort?' Harry scoffed.

.:That is one option:. Decimare agreed. .:But I was thinking more along the lines of something subtler. You demand that the post of High Inquisitor be dissolved immediately, on the grounds that it diminishes the power of the professors and gives said power to an outsider who knows practically nothing about Hogwarts:.

'And if they don't agree?' Harry asked in interest.

.:Then you will leave:.

Harry blinked. 'Where would I go?'

.:The Chamber of Secrets, where else? The only one who knows about it is your pretty girlfriend, and she certainly wouldn't tell:.

'And why would that make them agree to my demand?' Harry asked.

.:The Ministry won't care:. Decimare agreed. .:But Albus Dumbledore will. If you disappear off the radar… suffice it to say, that man believes you are the wizarding world's only hope, and if you lay down such an ultimatum… Actually, it may be exactly the break he's looking for to get rid of Dolores Umbridge. It's a win-win situation:.

'Yeah,' Harry agreed. 'Except my marks will go down the drain if I miss school for a month or two.'

.:Hopefully it won't take that long:. Decimare attempted to reassure him. .:And I do wish you'd cease this pointless bickering. It's not as if I'm giving you a choice in the matter:.

Harry suppressed a grin. 'Sure thing, mentor mine. It's not like I have anything to lose. They should have known that if they took away Quidditch, they'd be getting a fight on their hands. I'll do it.'

.:This should be fun:. Decimare predicted gleefully.

James Potter was just about ready to explode. Ten minutes ago, he and Sirius had been perched on the tallest Gryffindor Quidditch tower, cheering madly as Harry raced after the Snitch. When he'd finally caught the elusive golden ball, they had screamed themselves hoarse as the stadium rocked with applause. Then everything had gone downhill.

Far down below them, the tiny speck that was Harry landed on the ground and was soon surrounded by a sea of red and gold. Then, a tiny green speck had marched up (Draco Malfoy, presumably), the two had spoken some words to each other, and then three red specks collided with the green one… and all hell broke loose.

He and Sirius immediately leapt to their feet and attempted to get down to the stadium floor, but being at the top of the tallest tower, with approximately a gazillion screaming students in their way, progress was slow. By the time they finally reached the pitch, Harry, Malfoy, Fred Weasley, and George Weasley had disappeared, and Professor Snape was laying into the rest of the Gryffindor team.

"Oy, Snape, what's going on?" Sirius bellowed into Snape's ear, who jumped back with a furious look on his sallow face.

"What are you trying to do, Black, deafen me?" he snarled viciously.

Sirius blinked. "I thought I made that pretty obvious, yeah."

Snape rolled his eyes. "If you'll excuse me, I have students to punish."

"What happened?" James pressed, and Snape glared at him.

"Ask your son's precious girlfriend," he snapped. "I'm sure she'll be pleased to give you the whole sob-story." He turned back to the Gryffindor team, who had escaped during the distraction. Snape growled and turned his attention to the students milling about them. "Get back to your common rooms, now! Ten points from Gryffindor, Finnigan!"

"For what?" a bewildered Seamus Finnigan demanded.

"Questioning a teacher!" Snape bellowed. "Make that twenty!"

James just exchanged an exasperated look with Sirius, before turning and searching out his son's "girlfriend". The problem was, Harry had never mentioned having a girlfriend. He had a good idea who it might be, though.

"Did you know Harry had a girlfriend?" Sirius asked conversationally as they fought their way through the throng of students.

"I had no idea," James replied pleasantly. "But I suspect it is Ginny Weasley."

"Good guess," Sirius agreed, spotting the petite redhead a few meters ahead. "Thar she blows!"

"If Harry hears you calling his girlfriend a whale…" James warned.

"Yeah, yeah," Sirius said unconcernedly. "Oy, Ginny!"

The girl in question spun around and spotted the dark-haired duo. "Sirius! Mister Potter! Have you seen Harry? What happened?"

James rolled his eyes. "We were hoping you'd know. And Ginny… it's _James_. Mister Potter was my father."

Ginny laughed. "Whatever you say, Mister Potter. Oh! You probably want to know what happened!"

"If you please," Sirius said as politely as possible through gritted teeth.

Ginny winced. "Er, right then… Harry landed, and the Gryffindor team ran up to congratulate him… and then Malfoy showed up, cocky as ever, and insulted my mum."

"Filthy, bloody, spawn of the Dark Lord," James said darkly.

"For sure," Ginny agreed, just as darkly. "Then, while the team's holding back the twins from jumping Malfoy, the git goes on and insults Harry's mum… er… your wife."

Sirius and James froze. James leaned forward slightly. "Did you just say what I think you said?"

"Er… yes…" Ginny stammered. "He said she was… please don't kill me, Mister Potter… porky…"

"_WHAT_?" James roared.

"…and… er… she was dead, and good riddance…" Ginny trailed off when she noticed the look on James's face. "Sirius… is he alright?"

"No," Sirius told her. "I suspect he is currently envisioning the many ways in which he will brutally torture and then murder the Malfoy heir."

Ginny's eyes went round. "Oh. _Oh_!"

"What?" James snapped, coming out of his murderous trance.

"After Malfoy… er… well, you know, Harry lost it and attacked Malfoy, along with Fred and George."

James smirked evilly. "How badly did he pound Malfoy into the ground?"

Ginny grinned. "Let's just say Malfoy's going to be having a very rough week. Or three."

"That's my boy," James beamed. "So where is he now?"

"That's what I wanted to tell you," Ginny said earnestly. "Madam Hooch showed up and blasted them apart, and then McGonagall rounded up Harry, Fred, and George and sent them up to her office. Malfoy, she sent to the hospital wing on a stretcher."

She grinned sadistically.

"So McGonagall's dealing with them?" Sirius asked, turning to James thoughtfully. "She won't go too hard on them, considering what Malfoy said. Maybe we could even speak to her and lessen the sentence…"

"After I kill Draco Malfoy, you mean," James corrected.

Sirius eyed his friend warily. "Sure, Prongs. Whatever you say. Anything else we should know, Ginny?"

Ginny paused in thought a moment, before frowning. "I think I saw Umbridge heading back to the castle right after McGonagall and the boys went inside. She may try to interfere, but I don't see how she could…"

James and Sirius exchanged panic-filled glances.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Sirius asked breathlessly.

"The new Ministry decree?" James said.

"The one scheduled to be released tomorrow?"

"The one we read about from the Ministry letter we stole from Umbridge?"

"The one that we were never supposed to even know existed?"

"_SHIT_!" they chorused succinctly, before turning and dashing off towards the castle, leaving in their wake one very, very confused, and slightly terrified, Ginny Weasley.

"Did he say 'stole'?" she wondered to herself, before shrugging and heading to the common room to await Harry's return.


	30. Ultimatum

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Thirty – Ultimatum

"That will be all, Potter," Professor Umbridge told Harry sweetly. "Show yourself and your friends out of this office immediately."

Fred and George cast beseeching glances at their Head of House, but Professor McGonagall looked away, lips pressed together in barely restrained outrage. The twins exchanged a look, before turning to, for some reason, Harry, as if expecting him to do something miraculous to save them. Harry decided to prove their faith justified.

"No," Harry announced bluntly, causing Umbridge's eyes to widen in surprise.

"What did you say, Potter?" the toad-like witch demanded, leaning forward in a failed attempt to appear intimidating. "Refusing is not one of your options. I suggest you leave before I punish you even more for defying a professor."

"No," Harry repeated. "I will not."

"Potter," McGonagall said warningly.

"Dolores Umbridge is an incompetent buffoon and Ministry spy who should never have come to Hogwarts in the first place," Harry said politely, as if he were merely stating facts… which he was, coincidentally. "I have been waiting these past few months in hopes that Professor Dumbledore would remove her from Hogwarts by his own means, and this is the only reason why I haven't done anything sooner."

.:Except for attacking Umbridge in the middle of the Entrance hall:. Decimare reminded Harry, who sighed.

'Don't distract me,' he reproved. Decimare fell silent.

"But things have finally gone too far," Harry continued. "By introducing the High Inquisitor post, Professor Umbridge has overstepped her boundaries for the last time, and I will not stand for it. Not only does the post diminish the power of the teachers, it will be held by a woman whose sense of morals and justice are roughly equivalent to those of a toad."

The Weasley twins couldn't help themselves. "A toad?" they chorused.

"In that they are slimy, disgusting, and altogether unpleasant," Harry elaborated.

Professor Umbridge seemed beside herself with fury. "You will pay for that, Potter! I'm going to suspend you for the rest of your natural life-"

"Hardly," Harry interrupted scathingly. "You will do nothing of the sort. Professor McGonagall?"

McGonagall, who had been watching the proceedings with growing unease, replied, "What is it, Potter?"

"I am lodging a formal complaint against High Inquisitor Dolores Umbridge," Harry said firmly.

"He can't do that!" Umbridge protested.

"Yes, I can," Harry snapped. "Read the rulebook, Umbridge, and you'll find I'm completely in the right."

He fixed Umbridge with a fierce glare. "I want Dolores Umbridge removed from the post of High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, and the post permanently dissolved."

"Preposterous," Umbridge huffed.

"It is out of our hands, Potter," McGonagall told Harry with slight regret, as she clearly hated Umbridge as much as he did.

"It is not out of Headmaster Dumbledore's, though," Harry countered.

"Albus Dumbledore will not go against the Ministry just because you don't like me, Potter!" Umbridge bellowed.

"Fine," Harry agreed. "Then I'm laying down an ultimatum. If the post of High Inquisitor is not dissolved, I will leave."

Silence blanketed the room.

Then Umbridge snorted derisively. "And what makes you think we care what you do with your sad little life, Potter? Just because your idiot father's alive again doesn't mean you'll suddenly get everything you want. Deal with it."

Harry regarded his professor silently for a moment. "Fine," he said, and turned to McGonagall. "Tell Dumbledore, Professor. If he won't get rid of Umbridge by himself, then this will force his hand."

"Potter," McGonagall said sternly, but Harry was already stepping away towards the wall opposite the door. "What do you hope to accomplish by this? It can't possibly work!"

"We'll see," was all Harry said.

"Where will you go?" she exclaimed.

Harry's lips twitched. "That, Professor, is why my plan will succeed. Good bye Professor, Fred, George. Tell Dumbledore my ultimatum."

With that, Decimare hissed a password in Parseltongue too softly for human ears to decipher, and to everyone except Harry's shock, the wall began to shudder and a passage materialized out of nowhere. Harry saluted the twins, nodded to McGonagall, and gave Umbridge a smug grin, before turning and disappearing into the shadows of the secret passage.

The quartet stood frozen for a moment, before McGonagall and Umbridge lunged towards the passage after Harry. It slammed shut with a resounding thud, leaving them staring at nothing but blank wall.

"What… how…" Umbridge stuttered wildly, before turning and running out of the room, no doubt off to find a way to punish Harry for his disappearing passage act. McGonagall's eyes merely widened slightly, before she rounded on Fred and George, who were grinning triumphantly.

"How did he do that?" she demanded furiously. "Where does that passage lead?"

Fred held up his hands pacifyingly. "We've seen a lot of passages around Hogwarts, Prof…"

"Leading every which way you can imagine," George added.

"But we've _never_ seen anything like that before," they chorused.

McGonagall slumped dejectedly into her chair. "Go get the Headmaster," she told the twins tiredly. "Tell him that Harry Potter has… disappeared."

Fred and George exchanged knowing glances before turning and hurrying out of the room.

Not a minute later, James and Sirius came barreling into the office, both out of breath from their long run from the Quidditch pitch.

"Never fear, the cavalry's here!" Sirius bellowed happily, but the grin quickly faded as he and James took in a weary McGonagall slumped at her desk, with no Harry in sight.

"Where's Harry?" James demanded.

"You tell me," McGonagall snapped. "He's _your_ son, James. Why don't you tell _me_ how he managed to open a passage in my office wall that no one has ever seen or heard of before!"

Sirius and James exchanged a surprised glance.

"Putting aside the obvious question of how he managed it," Sirius said, "maybe you could explain the why to us."

McGonagall sighed deeply. "Sit down, gentlemen. This is going to be quite a shock."

"So Mister Potter will not return until Madam Umbridge is removed from her post of High Inquisitor?" Dumbledore summed up. "This is troubling."

"I don't care if how troubling it is, I just want to know what the _hell_ you're doing to get me back my son!" James bellowed.

"You'd better be planning on meeting his demands, Albus, or else you'll have me to answer to," Sirius growled threateningly. Could he really take Dumbledore on single-handedly? Probably not, but rage was a powerful motivator.

"Calm down James," Dumbledore ordered. "And Sirius, do stop threatening me. This isn't helping Harry. Minerva, you say he gave no indication of where he planned on going?"

"None," she agreed, visibly calmer now that Dumbledore had taken charge. "I've already alerted the Order to check all the usual locations, but I haven't gotten any results as of yet."

"Be sure that they check everywhere," Dumbledore said. "Including Privet Drive and Grimmauld Place. Sirius, James, you will need to make sure he is not at the Potter Manor."

James was seeing red. "This is ridiculous! Harry is giving you the perfect excuse to fire Umbridge's ass, and instead you are trying to find a boy who, frankly, is just about impossible to find!"

"How do you figure?" McGonagall snapped.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "He has an invisibility cloak, remember? And James and I've been teaching him quite a number of concealment spells over the past few months… even if he were in this very room, he'd be damn near impossible to spot!"

"Nevertheless, locate Harry we shall," Dumbledore told Sirius firmly. "I admit there is nothing I would like more than to permanently remove Dolores Umbridge from this school, but the Ministry will not back down just because Harry told them to."

"Then Sirius and I will pay a visit to the good Minister Fudge," James said darkly. "We'll see how long Umbridge stays at Hogwarts after that."

"You will do no such thing," Dumbledore said sharply. "The last thing we need is to alienate ourselves from the Ministry of Magic with Voldemort alive and at large. Harry will just have to accept things will not change, whether he likes it or not."

"So you think that if you announce that, Harry will give up and come back?" Sirius asked incredulously.

"Potters don't give up so easily," James agreed.

"We would also announce that he would not be punished for leaving, as well as threatening Dolores and whatever else he said in Minerva's office. He'll simply accept the Quidditch ban and detentions, and the school will agree that nothing unusual transpired this day," Dumbledore said.

Sirius and James exchanged incredulous glances. "No offense," Sirius finally said. "But Harry won't just give in that easily."

"That remains to be seen," Dumbledore reminded him. "And until Harry returns, Sirius, you and James will continue with your security detail. I will not have you gallivanting across the country in an attempt to locate Harry. You are needed here. The Order will take care of the search."

Although it wasn't meant as such, James and Sirius took the Headmaster's words as a dismissal, and exited the office without another word. Outside, Sirius grumbled, "Sometimes I think Harry's got the right idea, leaving here."

"It's not entirely Dumbledore's fault," James pointed out reluctantly. Sirius gave his friend an incredulous look. "Alright," he conceded. "Harry's right; Umbridge has got to go. So now that Harry's taken the initiative and backed Albus into a corner, where does that leave us?"

"Like we said, I doubt we can find Harry," Sirius said. "We'll just have to do our part… somehow…"

The duo fell silent as they considered the problem. Finally, James said, "We can't just kick Umbridge out ourselves, since Albus ordered us rather specifically not to. But he didn't mention anything about harassing her."

"Annoying her so much that she'll have a nervous breakdown and leave voluntarily?" Sirius asked in interest. "Not a bad idea, really. Quite good, now that I think about it."

"Think it'll work?"

"Probably not," Sirius admitted. "But then again, we are the Marauders…"

"…and the Marauders can do anything!" James cheered. He shook his head. "That cheer is so corny."

"Don't insult the cheer," Sirius snapped. "I like it."

"You would," James agreed, smiling slightly. Sirius stared at him blankly as his bespectacled friend moved off down the hall. Then it hit him.

"Hey! What was that supposed to mean?"

It was only once Harry had descended the sweeping marble steps and crossed the massive hall of the Chamber of Secrets that he realized he had no idea how to proceed next.

.:That could be a problem:. Decimare agreed, although he didn't seem overly concerned.

"The Chamber is good for hiding," Harry thought aloud, scanning the marble expanse critically. "No one will think to look for me here, except Ginny of course, but she wouldn't give me away. No, the real problem is that as wonderful as the Chamber is, I need food and water to live, and while there is plenty of water available, food is less abundant."

.:You could always eat the rats:. Decimare suggested. Harry hoped he was joking.

"It's an idea," Harry snorted. "I guess staying here indefinitely is out of the question."

.:Not necessarily:. Decimare countered. .:Once Miss Weasley hears of your supposed 'escape', she'll come down here immediately to check. It is the logical thing to do, after all. We can simply ask her to bring you food every evening so you don't starve to death:.

"I don't want to be a burden to her," Harry declined.

.:You two came down almost every evening anyway, Master:. Decimare pointed out. .:I doubt she'd mind bringing food along every once in a while:.

"Yes," Harry agreed. "But it's the principle of the thing. This is my private stand against Umbridge, and I should be self-sufficient!"

.:Pride:. Decimare said in disgust. .:The downfall of many great men. Not that you are great, of course:. he hastily corrected.

"'Course not," Harry agreed with a slight grin. He knew Decimare was fond of him, even if the snake would never admit it.

.:I beg to differ:. the snake sniffed. .:Yet if you are determined to survive on your own without begging your girlfriend's help, I can teach you a spell to create food, if you like:.

Harry blinked. "I thought that was impossible! If you could just summon food, then why are there wizarding markets? Hell, if you could just create anything you needed, why does Diagon Alley even exist?"

.:I didn't say anything about creating whatever you wanted:. Decimare snapped irritably. .:I sometimes wonder how you've ever survived this long, jumping to such absurd conclusions:.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Right. So it's possible to create food, then? I didn't think…"

.:Obviously:. Decimare agreed distastefully. .:The reason you never heard of such a spell is because it is, like most of what I teach you, a Dark Arts spell:.

"Figures," Harry muttered.

.:I thought you were over your aversion to the Dark Arts:. Decimare said impatiently.

"Yes, yes, I am," Harry agreed quickly. "So that's it's never used, then? Because it's Dark?"

.:Correct. It is a rather simple spell, really:. Decimare said, and continued on to explain the rather simple spell to Harry, who, after invoking six different enchantments and nearly scorching the mosaic ceiling, had to wonder if Decimare needed to revise his definition of 'simple'.

.:It is not my fault you are an inept wizard:. Decimare snapped defensively, causing Harry to laugh.

"Whatever you say," he agreed. "Let's try it out, then. So if I want steak, I say…"

.:Creo cibatus:. Decimare prompted. .:While thinking of what you wish to create. In your case, steak… although I can't for the life of me discern what it is about dead animals that attracts you so…:.

Ignoring the sword's grumbling, Harry fixed the image of steak firmly in his mind, chanted the words and, with a wave of his wand, the food appeared with a pop in front of him on a marble step Harry had just cleaned.

"You'll need to show me how to conjure a plate next," Harry observed, attempting to eat the meal without the benefit of a fork and knife. "Utensils as well."

.:Save that for tomorrow:. Decimare said. .:More important is the fact that you managed the spell at all. Your concentration has increased substantially since I first came into your possession, and your power as well. Although I don't customarily hand out complements, I feel you deserve one, as hopeless as you still are:.

"Thanks," Harry said, touched. "I knew you were a softie all along."

"Parseltongue is really creepy to listen to, you know that?" a new voice said, and Harry turned with a delighted grin to greet Ginny as she stood above him, arms crossed, foot tapping, and a disapproving frown on her face.

Harry winced. "I suppose you aren't too pleased with me."

Ginny's eyes blazed. "You suppose? You _suppose_? How do you think I felt when I heard that my boyfriend was not only given detention for a month and _banned_ from Quidditch, but that when he heard this, he told Umbridge to leave Hogwarts forever, and then disappeared into the bloody wall!"

"I didn't tell her to leave forever," Harry muttered. "And I didn't disappear; I took a Chamber passage."

"_EVEN SO_!" Ginny bellowed. "That gives you _no_ excuse to do all this without even warning me first!"

"I'm sorry for worrying you," Harry apologized immediately, not really sure why he was apologizing. "It was a kind of spur-of-the-moment thing."

Ginny sighed. "Well, at least you had the sense to come down here, if you really felt the need to disappear."

Harry nodded vigorously. Rolling her eyes, Ginny plopped down beside him. He'd never understood before when his roommates complained about how high maintenance having a girlfriend was, but now he was beginning to get a glimmer. They were constantly emotionally unstable and irrational, with mercurial mood swings from raging mad to excruciatingly nice. Harry couldn't see how they managed to live without exploding from having so many emotions bottled up inside.

Ginny seemed to follow his train of thought, and gave him an irritated look. "Don't get all high and mighty on me, Potter. Men can be just as infuriating as women. How would _you_ feel if I up and decided to leave Hogwarts without telling anyone, or suddenly leaped at Padma Patil and began pounding her face in?"

Harry blinked. "Well, when you put it that way… I suppose you do have a case. Sorry," he said sheepishly.

"Quite alright," Ginny said pompously, sounding so much like her brother Percy that the duo burst into laughter at the unintended impersonation.

"So what can I do to help you?" Ginny asked as soon as the laughter died out. "What do you need? Food? Water?" She leaned closer, eyes twinkling in the dim emerald light. "Company?"

Harry flushed. "Company would be nice," he agreed. "But I've got the food and water angle covered, thanks to Decimare."

Ginny glanced at the steak sitting on the marble floor and shook her head. "How about I bring you some plates?"

"That'd be wonderful," Harry said thankfully. "You're an angel, Gin."

"And don't you forget it," she replied impishly, kissing Harry on the cheek. "Come on, Harry. Now that you've got a lot of free time on your hands, we can spend more time sparring." She summoned her rusty blade from its position in a nearby alcove.

Harry shrugged and drew Decimare. "My parrying's getting a little sloppy, I suppose."

Ginny grinned and leveled the pointed blade at his chest. "En garde."

The next evening found Sirius and James huddled in a little-known secret passageway off Professor Flitwick's office, furiously debating the best way to convince Umbridge to leave Hogwarts of her own accord.

"I still say we just poison her," Sirius snapped irritably. "Then she'll _have_ to leave, and go to St. Mungo's for a cure. She isn't likely to come back after that, now is she?"

"We can't poison her, Padfoot," James sighed, rubbing his temples. "That's sinking a little low, don't you think? It's not like she attacked anyone or is a spy of the Dark Lord; she's just an irritating, meddlesome Ministry representative."

"How about Boggarts?" Sirius tried. "Scare her to death?"

"I don't know about that, mate," a new voice said.

"I always thought pranks were more effective," a second voice chimed in.

Sirius and James blinked as Fred and George Weasley materialized in front of them, wide grins on their identical faces. James frowned.

"It isn't polite to eavesdrop," he reprimanded.

"We weren't," Fred countered.

"We were simply gaining information in a slightly less-than-socially-acceptable manner," George explained.

"Quite," they chorused.

James and Sirius rolled their eyes.

"Well, thanks for the input, but we can handle driving Umbridge out on our own," Sirius informed the twins politely.

"We are the Marauders, after all," James added. "We'll take care of it. Why don't you two go back to your common room?"

Fred and George glanced at each other.

"Sorry," Fred said cheerfully, flopping down beside the two older men seated on the dusty floor. "We've decided to help you."

"Whether you like it or not," George said, following his brother's lead.

"Now then," they chorused. "What's the plan?"

It was James and Sirius's turn to share a glance.

"Can we trust them?" Sirius whispered.

"Harry does," James told him with a shrug.

"Can we trust them all the way?" Sirius pressed.

James's eyes widened. "Do you think… you're right, Padfoot. It's time to expand the herd."

"We'll let you help us, on one condition," James announced.

"We accept," they replied instantly.

James blinked. "Right, then…"

Sirius took over. "You may help us on the condition that you agree to join the Marauders Generation X."

Fred and George exchanged delighted looks. "You mean it?" Fred asked breathlessly.

"Yes," James replied. "You're as good as Marauders already. You've seen and used the Map, you are certified troublemakers, plus you are excellent friends with my son. I don't see why you can't join."

"We need someone to fill Wormtail's position, anyway," Sirius muttered.

"Or two someones," James corrected. "Plus Harry, whenever we can find him."

"But you'll need pseudonyms," Sirius cautioned. "As well as animagus forms. Are you prepared to take on that kind of challenge?"

"We are, sir!" they chorused.

"Fine," James said. "Then as of right now, you are officially the first of the Gen X Marauders. Congratulations, gentlemen."

Fred and George were beside themselves with joy.

"Now, down to business," Sirius announced. "Since you are now Marauders, there is no reason to sugar coat things. We are determined to drive Umbridge out of Hogwarts, and will use any means necessary to accomplish this."

"Except poison," James added hastily. "Or murder."

"Spoil sport," Sirius muttered.

George's eyes twinkled malevolently. "We have just the thing."

Dolores Umbridge was a happy woman. Everything was going her way. She had supreme authority over everyone in the school (except Dumbledore, unfortunately), and she had enough evidence against the Headmaster to get rid of him should he prove too disagreeable. Add to that the fact that she'd finally gotten that incorrigible brat Potter out of her way, and Umbridge could safely say things were looking up.

Then, out of nowhere, her office door said quite politely, "Umbridge is a barmy old bat."

Dolores stared in surprise at the door. In her experience, doors rarely spoke, and when they did, the words were almost never insults. Frowning, she drew her wand and crossed the room cautiously, suspecting it was a prank by one of the students.

"You wouldn't know up from down if you had three guesses," the door sneered.

"Why you!" Umbridge gasped in outrage. "_Silencio_!"

"You are an indescribably gluttonous, all-defiling plague upon humanity," the door taunted.

Umbridge swelled furiously. "Be quiet this instant!"

"Truly, you are about as interesting as watching a slug move slowly across a large rock," the door said contemptuously. "Do yourself and everyone else a favor: take a fatal overdose of your medication."

"_Silencio_!" Umbridge screamed. "For God's sake be quiet!"

"You are so fat you make sumo wrestlers look anorexic," the door said bitingly.

Close to just blasting the door into smithereens to shut it up, Umbridge set her jaw and marched out of the office, slamming the door shut as hard as possible. When she found out who had dared do such a thing…

"You are a grievously dissolute lackey and a depraved, stench-emitting sexual assaulter of barnyard animals," a nearby window cackled.

"You're so boring, even a boomerang wouldn't come back to you," a tapestry further down the hall agreed.

Umbridge gave up all pretences of normality. Screaming hysterically, she ran off down the hall past a group of first year Hufflepuffs, who burst into laughter the minute their professor was out of sight.

"I must say, this bacon is absolutely excellent this morning," Sirius said contentedly to James, Fred, and George, who were gathered at the edge of the Gryffindor table, dark circles under their eyes and wide grins on their faces.

"I don't care what they say," James gloated. "You _can_ have your cake and eat it too."

"I'm not sure how that applies to the situation," Fred pondered.

"Not now," George interrupted. "Umbridge is here."

"Prepare your innocent faces, gentlemen," James announced, watching intently as Umbridge walked into the hall, face absolutely burning.

"_POTTER_!" she shrieked at James, who momentarily wondered why people always blamed him for everything. It could be because it _was_ always his fault, but James wasn't about to admit that any time soon.

"Harry isn't here at the moment," James told the infuriated woman politely. "But I'll be sure to tell him you inquired after him."

"I meant you!" Umbridge snarled. "I want you to take it off right now!"

James gave her a politely bewildered look. "If you really insist, Professor, but I was always told that public nudity was frowned on in magical society."

"What?" she barked. James rolled his eyes.

"Take off _what_?" Sirius prompted helpfully.

"The insult spell!" Umbridge screamed.

At this point Headmaster Dumbledore arrived, a bemused smile on his ancient features. "What spell are you referring to, Dolores?"

"This one!" Umbridge shrieked, and as if on cue the walls, windows, and doors burst into speech.

"You light up a room when you leave it!"

"If you called the Suicide Hotline, they'd say: 'Go ahead. Do it!'"

"You are a shockingly offensive harpy and a loathsome, thick-headed wretched horror to all who encounter you!"

"Oh dear," Dumbledore said mildly. "That does seem to be a problem, doesn't it?"

"Tell Potter to take it off immediately!" Umbridge snapped.

"James?" Dumbledore asked mildly. "Did you do this?"

"No sir!" James protested, the archetypal image of innocence. "I had nothing to do with this!" It was true; he had been in charge of the classrooms, not the Great Hall.

"Well, Dolores, I believe you owe James an apology," Dumbledore told Umbridge, eyes twinkling in amusement. Umbridge looked ready to spit fire.

"If he's not responsible, then who is? You can't allow this disrespect to continue, Headmaster!"

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "I know as little as you, my dear Dolores. As for the spell… Finite Incantanem!"

Nothing happened. It could have been because Dumbledore had been holding his wand backwards when casting the spell, preventing him from accomplishing anything, but apparently Umbridge didn't notice that.

"I'm afraid there's nothing I can do," Dumbledore told her apologetically. "I suppose you'll have to live with it till the spell wears off. Good day."

Umbridge gaped at the back of his swirling robes as he strode away. James gave her an innocent smile. She glared furiously. James took it as his cue to leave.

"Potter, this isn't over!" Umbridge snarled. "And Black, I know you're involved as well. I'll be watching you!"

"Do you speak any language that non-gibbering idiots can understand?" a nearby window inquired snidely. Umbridge growled in frustration before turning and stalking out of the hall. As soon as she left, every student in the hall dissolved into laughter.

James, Sirius, Fred, and George exchanged a four-way high five.

The Weasley twins grinned evilly.

"Phase One complete," they chorused.


	31. Just Make It Stop!

Disclaimer: I do not own or lay claim to Harry Potter or any characters, settings, merchandise etc. associated with him.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter 31 – Just Make It Stop!

"Lord, you grow uglier every day," a nearby window remarked accurately as Dolores Umbridge hurried down the hall, eyes twitching nervously. The twitch had started almost two weeks ago, ever since Hogwarts' doors, windows, and walls miraculously began insulting her at every opportunity, apparently all by themselves. To say that Umbridge was horrified, embarrassed, and being even nastier than usual was an understatement. Even Dumbledore found excuses to leave the room when she entered, although that could have been because the insults grew inexplicably cruder in his presence.

"If you got an uglier than you already are, I'll have trouble telling you apart from my pet ape!" a door cackled.

"Why don't you go jump in a lake?" a wall asked sweetly.

"Why don't you shut up before I blast you into smithereens?" Umbridge bellowed in frustration. A mechanical 'click' sounded behind her, and she spun around to find James standing innocently in the middle of the hallway, clutching a Muggle video camera.

"My, my, Professor," James said sorrowfully, shaking his head in disappointment. "Threatening to damage school property. The Headmaster won't be pleased." He waved the camera tauntingly.

"Give me that!" Umbridge snarled. James just laughed. "I know you're behind this, Potter, even if Dumbledore says otherwise. What do you want from me?"

"I don't want anything," James said sternly. "It's what Harry wants that you should be thinking about."

Umbridge's squinty eyes widened. "You're saying your son did all this? I knew it!"

"Now, wait a minute…" James said hastily.

"Why didn't I see it before?" Umbridge crowed triumphantly. "Oooh, wait till I tell the Headmaster! With evidence like this, he'll _have _to put a stop to this!"

James couldn't stop himself. "Don't be daft!" he snapped. "How could Harry possibly enchant Hogwarts? He disappeared, remember?"

"I bet you five galleons he's still around, then!" Umbridge egged. "Hiding out in the lavatory or something!"

James blinked. "The lavatory?" he repeated incredulously. "Madam Umbridge, I'll take that bet. I'd be crazy not to."

"You'll see," she told him. "No one insults Dolores Umbridge and gets away with it!" To prove her point, she whirled around, marched down the hall, and ran straight into the wall.

Stumbling backwards, she exclaimed, "What's a wall doing _here_? I swear it wasn't there before!"

As if to prove her wrong, several stone blocks detached from the wall and soared towards her head. Umbridge screamed wildly and fell flat on the floor, the blocks missing her head by inches.

"What's going on?" she shrieked hysterically as a windowpane shot towards her, cackling madly.

"Maybe Harry's come out from his lavatory lair to exact his revenge," James suggested dryly.

Umbridge began to reply, but it turned into a screech as an entire door disengaged from its hinges and lumbered after her as she fled screaming down the hall.

James shook his head in astonishment. "I've _got_ to get the twins to tell me how they managed this!"

"Things are going well," Ginny reported as she swept into the Chamber of Secrets, grinning like the Cheshire cat. "She's getting closer and closer to the breaking point. Our anonymous pranksters pushed it up another notch today… it was bloody hilarious."

"What did they do?" Harry asked eagerly, setting aside the stone he'd been sharpening Decimare with.

"The walls apparently have a greater grievance with Umbridge than we thought. According to Sirius, between his fits of uncontrolled laughter, he explained that they enchanted the walls, doors, and windows to physically attack Umbridge at every opportunity."

"Brilliant," Harry grinned. "How's Umbridge taking it?"

"She's been forced to move her classes outside," Ginny giggled. "Unfortunately, the only place available was a strip right beside the lake…"

"Don't tell me…" Harry laughed.

"Oh yes, they did!" Ginny cackled. "Sirius and James paid a visit to the giant squid, and since then it's taken to drenching Umbridge at every opportunity."

Harry shook his head. "To think all it took was my leaving to convince them to let loose on Umbridge. I should have done it sooner."

Ginny gave his arm a smack. "You've been down here too long; you're getting delusional."

"Well, with only you and an evil snake spirit for company, how could I not?"

"Well, I never!" Ginny huffed. The duo glared at each other for a moment, before bursting into laughter.

.:I am not evil:. Decimare informed his Master sternly. .:Besides, evil is relative. I'd have thought you'd have realized that by now:.

Harry ignored the sword, turning instead to his gorgeous girlfriend. "You know," he said slyly, poring on the Potter charm. "I haven't seen you in two whole days, and it's been awfully lonely down here…"

After three delicious hours with Ginny, the redhead finally had to go, leaving Harry alone in the middle of the hall humming happily under his breath. Everything was going his way: he had a loving family, a fantastic girlfriend, and Umbridge on the verge of packing up and leaving, permanently.

"Life can't get much better than this," Harry sighed happily. The clincher was that Harry had not dreamed of Voldemort in weeks – all his dreams (apart from passionate ones concerning his girlfriend) revolved around strange corridors and locked doors, which Harry had decided to ignore on principle. As Sirius had once remarked, "If your subconscious has something important to tell you, it should have the decency to come out and say it, rather than giving you obscure hints in your dreams."

"Monkeys always keep their bananas at hand, in case the evil walnuts ever go swimming," a very familiar voice remarked.

'Aw crud,' Harry thought in horror as he placed the voice to a name. Sure enough, it was none other standing behind him than Tristan, 'King of the Monkey Slaves.'

Harry surged forward and seized the first year by his shirt lapels. "What are you _doing_ here?" Harry demanded. "How did you get in?"

Then a horrible thought hit him.

"You're not a Parselmouth, are you?" Harry couldn't think of how else the kid got inside – the only way Ginny was able to enter was because he spent a good five hours teaching her how to pronounce the entrance password.

"Chocolate cotton and sugar trees," Tristan protested wildly, wriggling against Harry's grip. Unlike James and Sirius, however, Harry had no moral issues with forcibly interrogating first years.

"Talk, Tristan, or you'll never again see the light of day!" Harry wasn't bluffing. Of course he wouldn't kill the kid, but he had no qualms with holding him down here indefinitely until he got an answer. Although, judging by Tristan's ability to get pretty much anywhere he wished, Harry wasn't so sure he'd be able to hold him even if he wanted to.

"Ostrich!" Tristan bellowed in defiance.

"Tristan!" Harry shouted angrily. Then, to his shock, Tristan ceased wriggling about and cast him an approving smile.

"That's right," Tristan agreed in perfectly normal English.

Harry was pretty sure he'd missed something. "What?"

"I expressed my displeasure at being held against my will, and you agreed it was tragic," Tristan explained.

"No, I didn't," Harry told the child in bemusement. "You said 'Ostrich' and I said 'Tristan'."

.:Perhaps it was speaking in code:. Decimare suggested.

"Are you speaking in code?" Harry demanded.

Tristan gave him a very Dumbledore-esque look. "Life is a code," he said serenely.

In his mind, Decimare gave a frustrated sigh. .:I thought I warned you to pay attention to what I say, Master:.

'I do,' Harry snapped. 'But I'm a bit preoccupied with the fact that the most unhinged first year in the school somehow got into the Chamber of Secrets!'

Decimare sighed again. .:It's never too late to learn a valuable lesson, I suppose. I will repeat what I just said, and we'll see if you pick up the hidden meaning this time:.

'I don't have time for this,' Harry grumbled, watching uneasily as Tristan curiously examined the vast expanse of the marble hall.

.:Be quiet and listen:. Decimare hissed. .:Perhaps it is speaking in code:.

'I have no idea what you're talking about.'

.:Perhaps _it_ is speaking in code:. Decimare repeated. .:Lord, Master, you can't possibly be this thick:.

'Oh!' Harry exclaimed. 'You're saying _he_ is actually an _it_!"

.:Give the boy a cookie:. Decimare muttered. .:It's taken me awhile to see it, but I have finally concluded that Tristan is not an eleven-year-old boy like he pretends to be. In fact, he's not even fully human:.

Harry snorted. 'Then what is he? Part mouse?'

.:I think he is part ghost:. Decimare said evenly.

Harry studied the unassuming boy in front of him. 'You're cracked,' he decided. 'Tristan is just as human and living as I am.'

.:Suite yourself:. Decimare snapped. .:But if my reasoning is so infeasible, Master, then how _did_ Master Tristan get in here:.

'That's what I want to know,' Harry sighed.

"Bananas are shunned by the baboons of wrath," Tristan said, snapping Harry back to reality. Harry following Tristan's line of sight, and realized the boy had spotted Decimare.

"Oh no you don't, not this time!" Harry snapped. "I understood that, you little brat! I actually figured out what you meant through your twisted words! You're slipping!"

Tristan arched one tiny eyebrow.

"Bananas refers to my sword," Harry explained. "And baboons… well, most students think of their teachers as baboons at time, don't they? So you said that… having weapons is against the school rules!"

Tristan gave him a congratulatory bow, leaving Harry feeling absurdly proud, until he caught himself.

"Oh no you don't! You aren't getting off _that_ easily! Now, why are you down here?"

Backed into a corner, Tristan regretfully replied, "I was ordered to enter the Chamber of Secrets."

"By who?" Harry pressed eagerly.

"Mother," Tristan told him solemnly.

"Mother," Harry repeated. "Did Mother get you in here as well, then?"

"No."

Harry sighed. "Then who did?"

"The Haunter of Halls, the Prince of Pranks," Tristan said.

"The Weasley twins?" Harry guessed. "James or Sirius?"

"The unwitting Minion of Gaia and Pluto," Tristan corrected.

Harry was officially lost. "The minion of a planet? I thought I told you to make sense!"

"No," Tristan informed him. "That was James Potter and Sirius Black who told me that."

"Oh, so now _they're_ involved in this as well?" Harry demanded incredulously. "Just how many people know about my hiding out in the Chamber?"

"Only us," Tristan assured.

"Then how are James and Sirius involved?"

"They aren't."

Harry sighed. Tristan was clamming up again, and Harry still didn't have his answers. "Why are you down here?" he repeated.

"I have a message."

"Finally!" Harry cheered. "A straight answer! What is it? Who's it from?"

"The message is from the rat."

Harry was about to lecture Tristan for speaking in code again, when he realized that he might have actually been speaking literally. "The rat… you mean Peter Pettigrew, don't you?"

"Possibly," Tristan replied mysteriously. "Here is the message: Padfoot's cave, full moon. Bring the snake."

"Padfoot's cave, full moon, bring the snake," Harry repeated, closing his eyes in thought.

.:The full moon is the first week of December, about nine days from now:. Decimare hissed helpfully. .:I am most certainly the snake he speaks of. Now, assuming you know what cave he is referring to…:.

"Yes," Harry agreed. It could only be the cave he, Ron, and Hermione had met with Sirius in during their fourth year. "You remember I told you about those dreams I had about Pettigrew? With him on the run with that bizarre package?"

.:You mentioned it:. Decimare agreed. .:You suspect this meeting has something to do with it:.

"Quite possibly," Harry agreed. "And if I'm right, then that means I need to get out of this Chamber and back up to Hogwarts, or else I won't be able to get to Hogsmeade."

.:If I may, Master:. Decimare said. .:You are not only an intelligent, moderately clever young man, but you have an _Invisibility cloak_ and the _Marauder's Map_ in your possession. Why would you need to return to Hogwarts:.

"Because I feel that I can make more of a difference in the resistance movement on the surface world than down here," Harry explained grandly, then grinned sheepishly. "Actually, I'm kind of getting bored down here."

.:We shall tell Ginny of your plans, then, and she'll pass the message on to your Father:. Decimare decided.

"Thank god," Harry sighed in relief. "The Chamber of Secrets is a wicked place, but it really wasn't made for living in. I just hope Dumbledore doesn't go too hard on me once I show my face again…"

.:That is not what you should be worried about right now:. Decimare warned.

"What do you mean?"

.:Tristan is gone:.

Harry looked around frantically. It was true: the boy was nowhere in sight. "Dammit!" he exclaimed. "Where did he go?"

.:Back to his common room, I'd guess:. Decimare hypothesized. .:I don't mean to influence your judgment, Master, but for all the strange things that child does… I don't believe he means you any harm:.

"I had the same impression," Harry agreed reluctantly. "As long as he doesn't tell anyone about the Chamber, it should be fine. Although how he got a message from Peter Pettigrew of all people still escapes me…"

.:You can ask Pettigrew on the full moon:. Decimare reassured him. .:Now then, it is time to work on your Animagus Training. You'll never accomplish it at this rate:.

"Aww, shaddup," Harry muttered, obediently placing the sword down and pulling out his wand. Closing his eyes, he relaxed his mind and reached into his inner _ka_. With the image of a peregrine falcon firmly in his mind's eye, Harry took a deep breath and began the transformation.

.:Well, that's certainly an improvement:. Decimare commented once Harry got as far as he was able into the transformation. .:Your feathers are actually brown now:.

"As opposed to?" Harry squawked through his half-beaked mouth.

.:Well, they were still flesh colored last week, and purple yesterday – don't ask me how – so I'd have to say you're getting better at this:. Decimare said proudly. .:Now transform back, and quickly:.

"Why the urgency?" Harry asked lazily, refocusing his mind.

.:Because your girlfriend is coming:. Decimare said smugly.

Harry swore and hastily ended the transformation.

"Harry?" Ginny questioned as she sauntered over. She eyed him quizzically. "Did you have a _beak_?"

To his shame, he had not told his girlfriend a word about his Animagus attempts, and thus replied hastily, "Of course not! I'm a human, remember?"

She eyed him suspiciously. "Riiiight. Now then, what's our status on the Umbridge front?"

"I'd like to get back sooner rather than later," Harry replied carefully, not wanting to sound too urgent.

Ginny nodded in acceptance. "I'll tell the twins. Now, Harry, we probably won't be able to drive Umbridge _completely_ out of Hogwarts, just to relinquish the High Inquisitor position."

"That's fine," Harry agreed. "As long as she's out of my hair."

Ginny frowned. "You were adamant a week ago that she be kicked out permanently."

"Yeah, but a week ago I hadn't been living on badly-conjured food for half a month and sleeping on a rock hard – literally – floor," Harry reasoned.

Ginny leveled an unimpressed look at him. "You can conjure food, but you can't make a simple blanket? Harry…"

"Don't look at me like that," Harry protested. "Decimare doesn't know how to make bedding; it's not _evil_ enough for him."

.:I resent that:. Decimare sniffed.

"As long as Umbridge learns her place, it's fine with me," Harry concluded.

Ginny grinned. "Excellent. I'll go give the twins the battle order right now. Bye!"

"Sweet dreams!" Harry called after the slender girl as she raced away up the marble steps.

"Vixen has given the order. Now is the time to act."

"I still think we could have picked a better place to meet than a lavatory," Sirius complained.

"It was Umbridge's idea," James defended. "You were saying, Fred?"

The freckled wizard in question rolled his eyes and repeated gravely, "Vixen has given the order. Now is the time to act."

"Who's Vixen?" Sirius asked in confusion.

James gritted his teeth. "It's a _code name_, Padfoot, you're not supposed to know who it is."

Sirius gave him a non-plussed look.

"Ginny," George relented with a sigh. "She contacted us and has given the order to launch our final assault on Umbridge."

"Why?" James asked plaintively. "I was hoping we could continue on for a few weeks more… breaking people is _sooo_ much fun…"

"You sound like a Death Eater," Sirius admonished.

"Pish," James scoffed. "What do you know of Death Eaters?"

"A hell of a lot more than you do," Sirius snapped. "I was stuck with a dozen of them for over a decade, Mister 'Taking A Nice Vacation In Hell While The Rest Of Us Are Working Our Butts Off To Destroy Voldemort'."

The Weasley twins exchanged impressed glances. "Not bad," George complemented. "I wonder if we could turn that into an acronym…"

"TANVIHWTROUAWOBOTDV," Fred supplied without missing a beat.

"Can we get back on topic?" James requested. "So Harry wants to come back to us?"

"Spot on," George agreed.

"I still wish you'd tell us where he's hiding," Sirius muttered. "The Order's scoured all of England for him, and still no trace…"

"We don't know," Fred reminded. "Ginny relays the messages."

"Typical of him to trust his girlfriend over his own father," James grumbled.

"That's not the point," George scolded the man twice his senior… chronologically speaking. "Now, clearly, removing Umbridge entirely is out of the question, as it cannot possibly be done in the time allotted, but Harry said demolishing the High Inquisitor position will do for now."

"I think we should sic ferrets on her," Sirius opined.

"You're a moron," James snapped. "Ferrets are more attracted to men… speaking of which… do you know what Snape's doing this weekend?"

Sirius grinned evilly. "I do believe we could make an appointment for us and our … ferrety friends."

Fred moaned. "You did _not_ just say that. And to think I actually used to look up to you!"

"Perhaps his wit has diminished with age," George suggested. "His looks certainly have."

"You watch your mouth!" Sirius bellowed. "I'll have you know I'm just as sharp and handsome as I was thirty years ago!"

James did some quick mental calculations. "Wouldn't that make you somewhere in the vicinity of six years old?"

"That is entirely beside the point," Sirius informed him self-righteously. "Now, then, I believe we were discussing ways to utterly humiliate Dolores Umbridge?"

"I may have a way…" James began cautiously. "And I think it would work…"

"Let's hear it!" George cheered.

"If it works," James continued speculatively. "Umbridge will be so frustrated she'll do anything to make it all stop… including giving up the High Inquisitor post. Although we may need to corroborate with Dumbledore on that one to make it go through."

"Sounds good to me," Sirius decided. "What's the plan, Prongs?"

"Well," James said. "It will involve muggles, whipped cream, and a hell of a lot of mind-altering drugs."

Sirius, Fred, and George eagerly leaned closer as James unraveled his master plan. Umbridge was going _down_.

As it turned out, the plan did not involve muggles, whipped cream, or mind-altering drugs, although Sirius wished it had involved whipped cream, as it was one of his favorite desserts. In truth, all it required was a few spells, some ingenuity, and the willing, obedient participation of every student in the school.

Ha, like that was going to happen.

As such a plan was clearly doomed to fail, the quartet decided that perhaps mind-altering drugs weren't such a bad idea after all, and set Tristan to the task of brewing as many mind controlling potions as possible. No one was quite sure why Tristan was helping out, or how he'd even found out about the confidential plan in the first place, but as all four were rubbish at potions making, they decided not to look the gift horse in the mouth. Or, as was in Tristan's case, the gift monkey.

Three days later, the planning was over with, the preparations complete, and the Original Marauders and the Marauders Generation X were camped out in one of the dusty corners of the Great Hall, waiting eagerly for Umbridge to make her appearance.

All conversations immediately stopped as Umbridge walked in, as no one wanted to miss the daily spectacle of Umbridge being pulverized by Hogwarts itself. Sure enough, as the toad-like woman waddled quickly into the hall, ducking a barrage of splinters the Great Hall doors threw at her, the walls and windows began their usual chorus of insults.

"Your face is so ugly that visitors to the Ugly Palace pay money NOT to see you," the windows taunted.

" You are a wickedly obtuse vermin and a naive, flesh-creeping mass of existential impotence!" the Great Hall doors agreed fervently.

"We really outdid ourselves on that one," Fred laughed quietly to George.

"If brains were gasoline, you wouldn't have enough to run an ant's go-kart around the inside of a donut!" the walls concluded as the final piece de résistance.

Fred and George exchanged a glance.

"Okay, I don't know _where_ that one came from," George conceded sheepishly.

"Shhh!" James rebuked. "The fun's about to start!"

Up at the High Table, Umbridge had reached her seat without too much physical damage. Dumbledore, despite his obvious amusement over Umbridge's predicament, drew the line at her being attacked while at the High Table. His argument was that the professors could be harmed, although everyone was well aware every teacher at Hogwarts save Umbridge could easily cast a ward against the flying stones.

Reaching for a plate of sausages with a relieved sigh, Umbridge completely missed James, Sirius, Fred, and George's widening smirks as every person in the hall slowly consumed the meal's eggs, pancakes, and slightly off-color orange juice.

Off-color was an understatement. The orange juice was somewhere in the vicinity of fluorescent purple. Not that anyone noticed; Hogwarts was a magical school, after all. Still, the quartet found it endlessly amusing that no one had the sense after all these years to check their food before devouring it. The reason for the strange color was, of course, Sirius's fault.

"How was I to know citric acid turns the potion purple?" he'd snapped defensively that morning as the quartet had raided the kitchen to administer the potion.

"Well, seeing as it said at the bottom of the page, 'Do not mix with citric acid'…" James had said with a roll of his eyes.

As it turned out, nothing more than a color change occurred when the potion was mixed in with the daily orange juice, and thus Fred had gladly passed along the message to Ginny that Umbridge was officially done for. The one flaw Ginny had immediately pointed out was that Umbridge's orange juice was green rather than purple, being the master potion. Fred had replied that, frankly, the woman was not intelligent enough to tell the difference between a tasteful sweater and a hideous fashion faux pass, so how could she be expected to notice an off-color potion? To Ginny's chagrin, her brother was one hundred percent correct.

Thus, twenty minutes later as Professor Umbridge stood in front of her class out by the lake, sopping wet from her latest encounter with the giant squid, she had no suspicion whatsoever of the trauma that was about to befall her.

"We shall commence with roll call," Umbridge declared, pulling the soggy paper out from her bag, which promptly dissolved into an incoherent mush. She glared furiously at the sodden mass, as if to frighten it into submission, but the paper inexplicably failed to respond. "Longbottom, Neville."

"Present," the chubby boy called nervously.

"Granger, Hermione."

"Aqui!" the brunette announced.

Umbridge blinked. "Was that… never mind. Weasley, Ronald."

"Here, am I!" Ron agreed in a strange, high-pitched voice.

This time Umbridge couldn't let it be. "What on earth are you trying to pull, Weasley?"

"Pulling nothing, am I," Ron protested. "Answering your question, I am. Much frustration, in you I sense," he added wisely.

Umbridge frowned, but couldn't really fault him for speaking oddly, and so continued. "Finnigan, Seamus?"

"Gutentag!" the cheerful Irish boy said.

"All right," Umbridge snapped. "What's going on here?"

"No se," Hermione volunteered obliviously.

"Peut etre vous etes fou?" Lavender Brown tried.

"What in the hell are all of you talking about?" Umbridge growled in frustration.

"Much anger I sense in you," Ron scolded her. "Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the Dark Side of the Force."

"C'est le Star Wars!" Lavender cheered. "J'aime toi, Yoda!"

Umbridge clutched her hands to her head. "Shut up! All of you, just be quiet! Can't I get any peace around here?"

"Gomen," Dean said apologetically.

"Japanese, Spanish, German, French, some fictional character…" Umbridge muttered wildly. "Stop talking! What is wrong with you all?"

Dumbledore chose that moment to walk up, smile benevolently, and ask politely, "Waz wrong wit choo, homey dawg? S'up in da house?"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Umbridge screeched, abandoning all dignity and racing towards the safety of Hogwarts as quickly as possible. Barreling her way past the main doors, she was only a few steps inside the Entrance Hall before she realized that every single person in the hall was squawking in lieu of normal English.

"STOP! ALL OF YOU! BE QUIET!" Umbridge screamed in horror.

"SQUAWK!" the hall bellowed back at her. The main doors took that as their cue to break free of their hinges and swoop headlong towards the diminutive professor.

Umbridge couldn't take it any longer. She just couldn't handle it.

"ALL RIGHT! I GIVE UP! YOU CAN TAKE YOUR STUPID HIGH INQUISITOR POST BACK! I RESIGN AS HIGH INQUISITOR! JUST MAKE IT STOP!" This said, Umbridge sobbed hysterically and raced away up the main staircase, blocking her ears in a vain effort to block out the incessant squawking.

Crouched in the corner, James, Sirius, Fred, and George exchanged a triumphant whoop. The good guys win again!

"I suppose we have to call off the spells now," Sirius remarked forlornly.

"Unfortunately, yes," James agreed reluctantly. "You want to do the honors?"

"Might as well do it together," Sirius sighed. "Gentlemen, on the count of three."

"One," Fred said.

"Two," George added.

"Three," James concluded.

"Finite Incantanem!"

To be continued…

A/N: And here's chapter 31! I'm actually quite proud of myself for getting this out, as I didn't think I'd have any time to be writing, what with exams coming up and all, but… here it is! It feels so good to update this story… maybe I should forsake studying entirely and just write this…


	32. The Double Crosser

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to him and his mighty Empire of assorted merchandise and products.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Double Crosser

"I must say I am surprised you are resigning the post you appeared to be so attached to," Albus Dumbledore confessed as he gazed serenely across his mahogany desk at Dolores Umbridge, who, although she was here tendering her resignation, seemed to be very reluctant doing so.

"Nevertheless, I find it… necessary in present circumstances to resign my post as High Inquisitor."

"Might I ask what brought you to this decision?" Dumbledore inquired politely, popping a sherbet lemon in his mouth, neglecting to offer her one. Unknown to Umbridge, she was the only person ever to enter his office and not receive the invitation of candy. Not that she cared either way.

"It may have had something to do with the sudden animosity Hogwarts castle began showing me when I assumed the post of High Inquisitor," Umbridge snapped shortly.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," Dumbledore informed her pleasantly.

"I'm sure you don't," Umbridge muttered. "Can I leave now?"

"You are leaving Hogwarts?" Dumbledore said in surprise. "I'm so sorry to hear that! Well, I wish you luck with whatever path life takes you, my dear lady."

"I meant your office, Dumbledore, not the entire school," Umbridge growled, beginning to suspect that Dumbledore was mocking her.

"But of course," Dumbledore agreed readily. "You can leave in a moment. I'm afraid I need you for one more moment."

"Seeing as I'm only a simple professor once more, I hardly see what you could want me for," Umbridge snarled.

"Ahh, but you used to be High Inquisitor, madam, and I wanted to know your opinion of Hogwarts' successor to that post."

"What?" Umbridge shrieked, eyes bulging. "I thought you were going to dissolve the position entirely!"

Dumbledore appeared shocked by the suggestion. "Hardly, Dolores! The Ministry invented the post, after all, it's certainly not within my jurisdiction to destroy it! But since it is a post, and as everyone knows, posts have to be filled… allow me to introduce our new, fully certified High Inquisitor…"

Tristan bounded into the office in all his manic glory, grinning madly. Umbridge gaped at the first year in utter horror, staggered backwards and fainted to the floor with a thud.

Tristan blinked owlishly. "Coconut?" he demanded crossly.

"I have no idea either," Dumbledore admitted in bewilderment. "I had expected her to faint _after _I told her the new High Inquisitor's name, not before."

"Mushroom," Tristan sympathized. Then he turned a curious gaze on the wizened Headmaster. "Do pineapples have feathers?"

Dumbledore laughed. "No, you are certainly not the High Inquisitor, my boy. That dubious honor will fall to James Potter."

"The chickens are restless," Tristan warned.

"Perhaps you are right," he said thoughtfully. "I'm not sure Fudge will let me get away with putting James in such a position of authority. Perhaps I should give the position to Minerva. She would not be nearly as controversial."

Tristan patted his arm understandingly. "Baboons wail when the dawn sets."

"Too true," Dumbledore murmured. "Very well. Be a good lad and get Professor McGonagall for me, would you?"

Nodding, Tristan slipped away into the shadows as the Headmaster sat wearily in his chair, staring blankly at the far wall. Tristan sighed, clucked his tongue sadly, and skipped off to find the elusive Transfiguration Mistress.

Harry figured that after being MIA for over two weeks, his triumphant return should be nothing short of spectacular. This was why he found himself huddled in a broom cupboard just outside the Great Hall on Monday morning, teeth chattering at the freezing cold temperature, arms filled to the bursting with fireworks. WWW's Wildfire Whizbangs, to be exact, a brand new item straight from the secret laboratories of Fred and George Weasley, a gift the twins had eagerly imparted upon Ginny once she'd explained what Harry intended to use them for.

At five a.m., Harry cautiously emerged from his hiding spot and tiptoed across the massive stone hall, arms straining under the weight of the fireworks. Carefully easing open the Great Hall doors, Harry proceeded to spend the next half hour placing the fireworks in a strategic manner around the room.

Grinning happily at a job well done, Harry sauntered out the hall with plenty of time to spare, and repositioned himself in his broom cupboard. He was growing rather fond of the tiny cupboard, truth be told. Closing his eyes, Harry readied himself for a long wait.

"Sleeping on the job, handsome?" a cheery voice chirped, wakening Harry from his unintentional nap.

"What? Oh, hi, Ginny," Harry responded absently, blinking as his eyes slowly adjusted to the light streaming through the open door. He looked up to realize the redhead was glaring at him. "What?"

"Seeing as you orchestrated this plan," Ginny lectured. "I'd have thought you'd at least be awake when it was put into action."

"Why?" Harry demanded. "What time is it?"

"7:30," Ginny snapped.

"Oh," Harry relaxed. "That isn't so bad."

Ginny rolled her eyes and waited expectantly. Three seconds later, Harry leapt to his feet in realization and swore vehemently as he frantically straightened his robes.

"No need to thank me," she sulked, and Harry paused to give his girlfriend a peck on the cheek.

"Come on, Gin, you how important you are to me! Like the stars in the sky, your beauty is as-"

Ginny laughed. "You're forgiven, just quite the mushy lines, Harry. Now, shall we go?"

"Let's do it!"

"You want to let us in on the plan, sister darling?" Fred schmoozed as he and George gave Ginny their best puppy dog eyes.

"What plan?" Ron demanded. "This wouldn't have anything to do with Harry, now would it?"

"Of course it does," Hermione responded with a roll of her eyes. "Your dear sister has been sneaking out every night since Harry left. Unless she's having an affair behind his back, you can bet she's been seeing Harry."

"Then you do know where he is!" Ron accused. "Why didn't you tell us? Gin, we're his best friends!"

"I've barely seen you," Ginny defended, glancing surreptitiously at the clock. "What with your Prefect status and everything."

"That's still no excuse not to tell us when our friend could be out there somewhere, dying!" Hermione exclaimed.

True to form, Ron immediately abandoned his argument with Ginny and pounced on Hermione's statement. "Don't exaggerate, Hermione, he's not going to die just because he disappeared for a few days."

"Weeks, more like!" Hermione countered. "And what do you know about any of this? For all we know, Death Eaters have tracked Harry down and are torturing him as we speak!"

"He's fine," Ginny interjected. "No Death Eaters are involved at all."

"Stay out of this!" Hermione and Ron snapped. Ginny blanched and backed down.

"Don't talk to Ginny like that!" Hermione snapped.

"Don't talk to my sister like that!" Ron rebutted, and they were off again.

Ginny suppressed a laugh. "I swear they're going to get married some day. Anyway, Harry should be making his appearance any minute now."

Fred and George conjured a bag of popcorn and sat back to enjoy the show.

Sure enough, less than two minutes later, a sudden silence blanketed the hall as an odd "click" resonated throughout the room. Three seconds later, the hall exploded in pandemonium as almost all the firecrackers Harry had planted went off at once.

"Showtime," the twins cackled as they locked onto the one firework that had not gone off with the others. As they were the inventors of the fireworks, only they (and Harry, naturally) knew the reason why the lone firecracker left was called the "Big Bang". Needless to say, when said firework did eventually go off a second later, the rest of the hall soon found out why it was called what it was, and students would spend the next two months rhapsodizing over seeing the "biggest, brightest firework, ever, in Hogwarts history".

Once everyone's sight had returned, the hall filled with gasps as they saw who was standing rather calmly in the center of the hall, robes in pristine condition and green eyes sparkling in the morning sun.

"Potter!" Malfoy roared. "You prat, you're going to pay for this!" Malfoy appeared to be upset because when the firecrackers went off, Pansy Parkinson had dumped a vat of corn syrup on his head. Harry didn't see what the issue was – he thought it rather an improvement, to be honest.

"Whatever are you talking about?" Harry asked innocently, inwardly wincing as Dumbledore and McGonagall stalked over to him, both looking rather displeased, although clearly relieved he was alive. All his friends were applauding at what had happened to Malfoy, and James and Sirius looked rather miffed for some reason. Well, no matter.

"I'm back," he said unnecessarily, giving the professors his best smile. McGonagall scowled.

"And where did you go, exactly, Potter?"

"I have no idea," Harry said brightly. "I can't remember a thing. I suspect I was kidnapped by aliens."

McGonagall did not find this amusing, although many of the students certainly did. Tristan had fallen over laughing, and his limbs were flailing so wildly his fellow Hufflepuffs elected to leave him where he was.

"Aliens," McGonagall said flatly. "I find that hard to believe, Potter."

Harry shrugged noncommittally. "Like I said, I only have my suspicions. I can't say anything for certain."

Before Professor McGonagall could completely lose her temper with Harry, Dumbledore tactfully stepped in.

"Mister Potter, you worried a great deal of people when you went gallivanting off on your protest against certain Hogwarts regulations. We are very glad that you are with us… _yes_, Minerva, we are _glad_ he's back… don't look at me like that…" Dumbledore was sidetracked as he began an impromptu glaring contest with Professor McGonagall.

Meanwhile, others took it upon themselves to welcome Harry back.

"ALIENS? I _told_ you he was in danger!" Hermione said furiously as she grabbed Harry in a fierce hug. "He could have _died_, Ronald, and you were too busy playing Quidditch and eating sweets to even worry about him!"

"He can take care of himself!" Ron bellowed. "Isn't that right, Harry?"

"Of course I can," Harry said indignantly, shaking Ron's hand as the boy pounded him on the back. It really hurt. Since when was Ron so strong?

"Glad to see you back," Ginny said softly as she sidled up to him. "Although the alien bit rather surprised me."

"It's my cover story," Harry explained.

"Cover story?" Ginny scoffed. "A three year old could come up with a better story than that. Honestly."

Harry was saved from having to respond by Professor Dumbledore, who had apparently won his glaring match with McGonagall.

"As I was saying, Mister Potter," Dumbledore continued. "We are glad to have you back, and regardless of what you were doing during your time away, or why you were spending said time away, the fact remains that you did leave school property without permission, missed over two weeks of classes, and failed to respect the authority of a Hogwarts professor. This can't go unpunished, I'm afraid."

Clearly, Dumbledore didn't really care why Harry had left, as he was fine with any attempts to discredit Umbridge. What he had a problem with was that Harry, the boy he'd been charged with protecting for over fourteen years, had left the school, and thus his protection, without informing anyone of his intended destination. This put Harry needlessly at risk which could easily have been avoided, and Dumbledore could not allow such behavior to be encouraged. It was downright dangerous, for both Harry's physical health, and Dumbledore's mental health.

"To be fair," Harry began tentatively, "I think you ought to only punish me for the skipping class part, Headmaster."

"And you leaving the school should not be punished because…?" McGonagall snapped.

"Er… I didn't?" Harry tried.

"Really?" McGonagall said flatly.

"It's the truth," Harry defended. "I was on school property the whole time."

"If you can prove you were in Hogwarts the entire time, Mister Potter," Dumbledore said, "then those charges will be dropped. Although I highly doubt you can prove anything of the sort."

"Then what's my punishment?"

McGonagall frowned. "Two weeks of skipping class merits two weeks of detention, I believe."

"Fair enough," Harry agreed readily. He had been expecting more, truth be told. Umbridge must have been grating on their nerves more than he'd thought. This must be their way of thanking him for kicking Umbridge out of office.

"Now, where have you been all this time?"

Harry gave the distinguished professor a half-smile. "Myrtle?"

In response to his summons, Moaning Myrtle floated over from where she'd been waiting at Harry's request, and stated with minimal amounts of hysterical sobbing, which was an achievement for her: "Harry has been visiting with me, Professor."

Technically true, as Harry did 'visit' her in her lavatory on his way in and out of the Chamber of Secrets.

McGonagall gaped like a fish, and turned to beseech Dumbledore for help. All she received was an amused smile, and the Transfiguration Mistress wisely closed her mouth and accepted Harry's answer, as there was nothing to be gained by arguing with the ancient Headmaster.

"Fine, Potter," she sighed. "Your detention begins this evening. Don't let it happen again." Disgusted, McGonagall shook her head silently and swept out of the hall, cueing the student body to return to their meals.

For the first time in two weeks, Harry resumed his spot at Gryffindor table, surrounded by his closest friends, all of whom were exceptionally pleased to see him well (and alive, in Hermione's case) again. In fact, the only person in the whole hall who was not delighted by Harry's return (aside from Snape, who was ill-tempered as usual) was James Potter, who looked downright livid.

"I'd be a fool not to take the bet," James scowled to himself as he dug around in his pockets. "What was I thinking? Where else would my idiot son hide but a lavatory? You'd think a secret chamber or abandoned classroom or something…"

Glowering unpleasantly, James stalked across the raised dais and plopped a handful of coins down on Umbridge's plate. The toad-like woman, still recovering from her meeting with Dumbledore, peered suspiciously at James.

"Five galleons, as promised," James grumbled. "Who'd have thought you'd actually be right for once?"

For the first time in her life, Dolores Umbridge was speechless.

Harry settled back into Hogwarts life with relative ease – well, as relative as you could get when you considered that he'd disappeared off the face of the planet for two weeks, and then returned, claiming to have been captured by aliens, and almost blowing up the Great Hall. Still, it was good to be back in the upper levels of Hogwarts, surrounded by family and friends, partially because he had missed the school in general, and mostly because he'd just missed his friends' antics.

Life was just getting back to normal when Hermione appeared in the common room one evening, decked out in full winter paraphernalia and clearly out of her mind with happiness.

"Hermione?" Ron asked cautiously, never sure how to act around his friend when she had these massive mood swings. "Are you… alright?"

"I'm fine," she said dismissively, almost bouncing on her heels in excitement. "Ron, you won't _believe _what's happened!"

"Harry's become Minister for Magic?" Ron guessed. "Because he'd make a really terrible Minister…"

"Hagrid's back!" Hermione exclaimed. Ron beamed just as widely as his bushy-haired friend, and the duo raced off to locate Harry and tell him the great news. They didn't have to go far, as he was lounging in front of the crackling fireplace on one of the massive crimson armchairs, Ginny's head leaning against his legs as she stroked Crookshanks absently. Normally Hermione would have been loathe to disturb them, but… Hagrid was _back_!

Harry's tousled, blue-streaked black hair flailed dramatically as his head swirled around at their sudden, rather exuberant appearance. "You two alright?" he asked cautiously. "You haven't been drinking, have you?" Hermione frowned. "Your nose is red," he explained.

"I was outside," she huffed indignantly. "And that's entirely beside the point. Harry, Hagrid's back!"

Gaping in astonishment, Harry shot to his feet in excitement, but, what with Ginny sitting at the base of his chair, he tripped over her, and the pair collapsed in a tangled heap on the fur rug. Sheepishly helping his scowling girlfriend up, Harry quickly got over his embarrassment and exclaimed, "Hagrid's back? We need to go see him! He's probably got so many stories to tell!"

"Well, let's go, then!" Ginny prompted, giving her boyfriend a shove towards the boy's dorm staircase. "Put on something warm, first, darling. And grab the invisibility cloak, would you?"

As Harry disappeared off up the staircase, Ron gave his sister a disgusted look. "_Darling_? Have you gone completely mental? And what's with mothering him?"

"Oh, grow up, Ronald," Ginny said with a roll of her eyes, which Hermione surprisingly mimicked a split second later. Ron, feeling distinctly ganged-up-on, abandoned the girls in favor of acquiring a warm cloak, and perhaps a guide to what the hell women were thinking in those strange heads of theirs.

As soon as Harry and Ron returned, the quartet made their way out of the common room, down the grand staircase, and had almost gotten to the entrance hall when Filch appeared, scrawny Mrs. Norris in tow. Harry quickly unfurled the invisibility cloak and draped it over his friends and himself before they were caught and their visit was suspended indefinitely. They made short work of sneaking past the ill-tempered caretaker, and after a short trek across the moon-lit lawns of Hogwarts, they arrived at Hagrid's cabin.

When Hermione shucked the invisibility cloak and whacked the door a few times, though, the last thing she'd expected was for James's bespectacled face to appear, staring about suspiciously.

"Er… good evening, Mister Potter," she greeted, somewhat flustered. "I… uh… noticed Hagrid was back, and decided to come visit him."

"Alone?" James said skeptically, glancing around behind her.

Not sure whether Harry's father was likely to get them in trouble for being out after dark, Hermione opted for covering for her friends. "That's right, alone."

He just laughed. "A piece of advice, Hermione? Invisibility cloaks are brilliant indoors, but they have a tendency to acquire some short-comings when out of doors. Namely, the fact that there are six pairs of tracks coming up to this house, and I can only account for three."

"Ghosts?" Hermione guessed wildly. "Oh, fine. Harry, take off the cloak."

Laughing, Harry removed the cloak and returned it with a flourish to his bag. "Hey, dad."

"Son," he greeted, gesturing for the quartet to enter the small cabin. As Ginny passed him, James's eyebrows shot up. Closing the door behind the petite redhead, James sidled over to Harry, who was hanging his coat on a coat peg, and whispered, "She's gorgeous. You've got good taste, kid."

Harry scowled good-naturedly. "I'll thank you to not talk about my girlfriend like she's some piece of meat, father."

"Maybe if you'd introduced her to me, I wouldn't have to spend my evenings stalking her for information about your sordid love life."

Harry gaped at him. "You're _stalking _my girlfriend? That's wrong on _so _many levels!"

"Oh, get a grip," James laughed. "I was joking. Come on, Hagrid can't wait to see you."

The pair slipped into the main room of the tiny cottage, and discovered that Ginny, Hermione, and Ron had arranged themselves on comfortable cushions on the floor, as the only two still-functional chairs were occupied by Sirius and Hagrid, who were chatting amiably.

"It's in the forest, then?" Sirius was saying incredulously as Harry crept over and took a seat beside Ginny, who entwined her fingers with his. "All this time?" He leaned forward threateningly. "It _is _all right, isn't it?"

"It's fine," Hagrid chuckled. It was then that Harry noticed how incredibly horrible his giant friend looked. His face was a mess of purple and black bruises, and his arm was dangling at a strange angle from his shoulder.

"What are they talking about?" he whispered to Ginny, who mimed riding a… bicycle? _Motorcycle, _Harry realized. _Oh! Sirius wants to know what happened to that flying motorcycle of his. If it's in the forest… well, things should be interesting, that's for sure._

"We saw the lights on in Hagrid's hut," James was explaining to Ron, "so we figured, to heck with security and saving hundreds of innocent children's lives, let's go see Hagrid."

"How noble," Ron grinned, prompting James to chuckle.

"Yeah, well, you should hear the story he told us!" James defended. "It was bloody amazing!"

"I suppose you'll be wanting to hear it, then?" Hagrid boomed, drawing all attention instantly to his large, somewhat beaten up frame. "It's a long story…"

"We've got all night," Harry said quickly. To his surprise, Hermione didn't scowl in his direction at the mention of skipping a night's sleep. Apparently she wanted to hear the story as much as she did.

So Hagrid put down his mug of ale, cleared his throat violently, and set about telling his tale… and what a tale it was! Treks across the wilds of France, encounters with Giants, something about everlasting fire, and many steamy scenes with Madam Maxime. When Hagrid finally finished, everyone was staring at him with a mixture of awe and concern (except James and Sirius, who had already heard the story, and were having a grand time of charming Ron's hair green without him noticing).

"So you actually made contact with the giants," Hermione marveled. "It's a shame they had to have a fight for dominance just as you were getting through to them."

"Not to mention those Death Eaters getting all cozy with 'em," Ron scowled. "There's still a hope some will join our side, though, right?"

"That's what Dumbledore's hopin'," Hagrid confirmed. "We did our best, and now all we gotta do is wait an' see what happens."

Feeling very bad about excluding Ginny from his plans again, especially considering how much she'd panicked last time he'd disappeared, Harry resolved to conclude this business with Wormtail in a record amount of time, so he could return before she even noticed he was gone. Pulling on the invisibility cloak, Harry swirled the ebony snake ring around his finger absently as he contemplated the best way to get to Hogsmeade without being seen.

.:You might consider flying:. Decimare suggested. .:And would you _stop _twirling me like some sort of bloody wheel? I'm going to be sick:.

'You don't have a stomach; you can't be sick,' Harry sighed, nevertheless abandoning his turning of the ring. "Won't someone see me flying around in the middle of Hogwarts?"

.:It's the middle of the night:. the snake snapped. .:Who's going to be up at this hour? Besides, it's early December, and freezing. No one in their right minds would step outside without good reason, let alone follow you:.

Harry thought of Sirius, and how he'd been randomly stuck to the ceiling at ten in the evening a few weeks ago. He was pretty sure that his godfather was crazy enough to try anything. 'You'd be surprised,' he countered, tiptoeing his way over to his trunk to retrieve his Firebolt. 'You sure this'll work? Maybe I should keep the cloak on…'

.:Won't work. It'll fall right off:. Decimare vetoed. .:Just stick to the shadows, and no one will see you. And if they do, they won't recognize you, and you'll have plenty of time to get away before they can even think about giving chase:.

Still not entirely sure this was a good idea, Harry dutifully crept down the stairs into the common room, out the portrait, and down the hall to the nearest window that wasn't chock full of stained glass. He would have simply left via his dorm room window, but he had feared the cold breeze would have awakened his roommates. Opening the shutters with a simple _Alohamora, _Harry gave the snake ring one last, uncertain glance, before turning and leaping out the window, Firebolt in hand.

Once he was clear of the wall, Harry quickly spun the Firebolt around, pulling it under his falling body. Leveling out, Harry took a quick glance around to make sure no one had spotted him, before turning and streaking away into the night. What he failed to notice was the security camera cunningly hidden behind a painting of a bowl of fruit, which recorded the entire scene with an unblinking eye. Down in the Sentinel Room, the alarms blared furiously, and James and Sirius bolted out of bed, wands drawn and ready for action.

It took a mere five minutes to get to Hogsmeade at the speeds the Firebolt was capable of producing, and almost before Harry knew it he was halfway up the mountain and quickly approaching the hidden cave entrance Sirius had used a year before. Pulling to a stop a few feet above the ground, Harry dropped the last bit and hid the Firebolt among the rocks, ready to use it as a quick escape route should this prove to be a trap.

As he approached the cave entrance, wand held defensively in front of him, and with Decimare back in sword form and securely strapped around his waist, Harry wondered what Pettigrew was playing at, sending him a message to meet him secretly through a first year Hufflepuff who was, to all intents and purposes, insane. He couldn't help but think that, as likely as it was, this whole thing _wasn't _a trap – those dreams he'd been having couldn't have been just his imagination, could they? Maybe Pettigrew really _had _turned back to the light, really _had _stolen some shield, and really _was _trying to seek Harry's help so he could atone for his sins.

Stepping into the dimly lit cave, Harry's eyes took in everything in rapid succession. A small, poorly built fire kept the place somewhat warm, there were discarded food wrappers scattered all about, and there, there in the corner, was a small bundle of rags. Judging by the way it was rising and falling, Harry was pretty certain he'd located Peter Pettigrew, double crosser extraordinaire.

.:Not much of a trap:. Decimare hissed condescendingly. .:I doubt you have much to fear from this pathetic man, Master:.

'Still, best to be careful,' Harry agreed, swishing his wand mercilessly at the man, causing him to fly across the cave and crash painfully down on the other side. "What do you want, Pettigrew?"

Scrambling to his feet, Peter raised his hands in a pacifying manner. Combined with his ill-kempt clothing, dirty face, and watery eyes, he looked extremely pitiful. "I just want to talk, Harry."

"Yeah, well, save that for the Wizengamot," Harry snapped viciously, keeping his wand trained on the defenseless wizard – Pettigrew's wand was off in the opposite corner, half covered by a Pringles can.

.:You're not going to turn him in, are you:. Decimare suddenly said anxiously. .:We need to know what he knows! And whether or not he has Merlin's shield:.

'Merlin's what?' he thought furiously. 'You know what that shield is?'

Decimare suddenly fell silent. Groaning, Harry returned his attention to Pettigrew, who hadn't made any attempt to retrieve his wand. Either he had set up a killer trap, or he really _did _just want to talk.

"Why did you send your message with Tristan?" Harry asked, figuring that was as good a place to start as any. Plus, he really just wanted to know how Tristan had come to be involved with this.

"He stumbled across this cave a fortnight ago," Pettigrew explained eagerly, apparently trying to show that he was trustworthy. "When I learned he was a student at Hogwarts, I had him deliver a message to you."

"And you didn't think him a bit… odd?" Harry asked incredulously.

Pettigrew blinked. "Not at all. Well, he was hostile at first, but after I explained what I was after, he calmed down and agreed to carry the message."

"He spoke intelligibly?" he demanded.

"Yes," Pettigrew insisted. "Harry, do you trust me?"

Harry snorted. "About as far as I can throw you." He glared at the trembling man. "What am I doing here, Pettigrew? You'd better have a good reason, or I will personally hand you over to the Dementors."

Squeaking in fright, Pettigrew scurried over to the fire and retrieved a large, circular object. .:Merlin's shield:. Decimare breathed in awe. .:This is the shield you saw in your dreams, Master, without a doubt. I suggest you stun him, grab it, and run:.

'Why?' Harry demanded as Pettigrew struggled to unwrap the cloth covering.

.:That is one of the most powerful magical objects in existence today, aside from me:. Decimare explained, not even bothering to sound modest. .:Master, the Dark Lord _cannot _get his hands on that:.

'I want to hear what he has to say first,' Harry decided. 'If Pettigrew's really come back to the light, then I want to be absolutely sure before I do anything rash.'

Having finally finished unwrapping, Pettigrew hurried over to Harry's side, and presented the shining, gem-encrusted shield that had been lurking at the back of Harry's mind for so long. Seeing something out of his dreams come to life was so astonishing that Harry momentarily forgot what he was there for.

"Merlin's shield," Pettigrew explained. "I stole it for the Dark Lord, but then your father came back to life and I…"

Harry waited with baited breath. As Pettigrew struggled for words, Harry reached deep into his core and called upon his _ka_, making him slip into the trance-like state that would allow him to tell if Pettigrew was speaking the truth.

"It was as if a second chance had suddenly presented itself," he stammered. "What no one realizes is that I _know _what I did was wrong, and I _know _I'm going to suffer eternally for it, but… when James came back, I realized that I had another shot."

"Another shot to betray him," Harry growled. Pettigrew seemed startled.

"No! You don't understand…" he protested. "I hate myself for what I did the night I betrayed Lily and James. You have no idea how many times I've cried over what I did to them. How I was too weak to stand up to the Dark Lord."

"Rubbish," Harry snapped. "If you're trying to make me feel sorry for you, it won't work."

"I know, I know," he said quickly. "I know you have no reason to forgive me, but you have to understand that I truly am repentant for my sins."

"Right," Harry snapped. "And I'm the King of the Monkey Slaves." He blinked. "Never mind. Look, what is your point, exactly?"

"My point is that I realized that if I wanted anyone to believe me, that I wanted to atone for my sins and return to the light, the only way I could do it was by showing you somehow that I was sorry. Showing _you_, Harry, because I know you're the only one who has the slightest chance of believing me."

"And what makes you think that?"

"You stood up for me in two years ago," Pettigrew mumbled. "When my best friends were ready to kill me, you, the person who had been hurt the most through my betrayal, stood up for me and spared my life."

"I didn't do that for you," Harry pointed out.

"Nevertheless, you are the only one I knew would listen to me without hexing me into oblivion as soon as you saw me."

"So you figured, hey, let's atone for our sins by taking the shield we stole for the Dark Lord and run off with it," Harry concluded.

"I realized that if this shield fell into the Dark Lord's possession, he would have an incalculable advantage," Pettigrew explained. "So, yes, I took the shield back and I ran… although how you knew that, I can't say."

"I… uh… have my ways," Harry said, trying and failing to sound mysterious. "So if you worked so hard to keep it hidden for so long, why are you suddenly showing it to me?"

"Because you can keep it safe better than I ever could," Pettigrew explained. "That, and… I was kind of hoping you would see it as atonement for my sins, bringing you such a valuable artifact."

"That you stole in the first place," Harry pointed out. As Pettigrew's face dropped, Harry felt a strange sensation sweep over him. It was almost like… pity? Impossible. This traitorous bastard had effectively killed his parents. He didn't deserve pity. Yet, there it was.

.:You are not entirely wrong:. Decimare said softly. .:This man is not as evil as he seems. He did not have any ill intentions towards your parents, he was just trying to look out for himself. Self preservation can be disastrous, Master, but I truly believe this man has learned that what he did was wrong. And, as strange as it seems, I think he really is trying to repent by giving you this shield, at great risk to himself:.

'Great risk? How so?'

.:That cloth binding the shield has an anti-magic detection spell on it:. Decimare explained. .:By taking the shield out to prove it is what it is, he is risking his life. The Dark Lord could be tracking him through the magical aura the shield projects right now:.

"Wormtail, I…" Harry trailed off. He couldn't _believe _he was doing this, but he'd been in touch with his _ka _when Pettigrew had spoken, and Harry knew he was telling the truth, as unlikely as it was. "I believe you."

Pettigrew's face brightened so much that Harry could barely believe he was looking at the same man. Smiling seemed to have the same effect on Pettigrew as it had on Sirius when Harry had first met him – they both looked twenty years younger. He actually wasn't that unpleasant to look at when he was smiling, Harry realized. Go figure.

"Harry… thank you," he choked. "I don't know what to say…"

"Promise you'll never desert me, my friends, or my family ever again," Harry prompted.

"Of course!" Pettigrew agreed instantly. "I understand friendship now. It took a long time, but I get it. I will never hurt you again, Harry, that I promise."

"Good… Peter."

As the two stood staring at each other, the mountain suddenly shook alarmingly. Pettigrew squealed, and they both looked down to see the shield was emitting a powerful golden glow.

.:The Dark Lord is here:. Decimare hissed. .:I can feel his presence! Master, you need to run. Now:.

"The shield!" Harry shouted above the rumbling of the mountain. "Peter, wrap up the shield. Now!"

As Peter scrambled to do as told, Harry raced to the cave entrance to see what was happening. His heart nearly stopped. Swarming up the mountain towards him were hundreds of Dementors, accompanied by at least ten Death Eaters, skull masks glinting wickedly in the moonlight. Ducking back inside before they could see him, Harry whirled around to find that Peter had successfully wrapped up the shield.

.:Master, you need to get the shield out of here:. Decimare said urgently. .:It _cannot _fall into the Dark Lord's hands:.

Harry glanced wildly around the cave, but could find no other entrance; there was only one, and it was about to be swarmed by Death Eaters and Dementors. _There's only one thing to do_, he realized. _I'm so glad dad and Sirius aren't here right now. They'd kill me for what I'm about to do._

"Peter," he said suddenly.

"What?" the older man squeaked, clutching the shield to his chest.

"There's only one thing Voldemort wants more than that shield," Harry said quietly. "That's me. Do you understand?"

"You can't be bait!" Peter protested. "I just reformed! I don't want your death on my conscious too!"

"You won't," Harry snapped. "_Accio Firebolt_." The broom sped into the cave and stopped dead beneath Harry's outstretched wand. "Listen carefully, because I'm only going to say this once."

Peter nodded to indicate he was listening.

Harry sighed in relief. "Good. We need to get that shield out of here, and I'm afraid you're going to have to do that. I know you want to get rid of it, and you're tired of being hunted, but…"

"I'll do it," Peter said unexpectedly. "I'm not letting you down again."

"Take it far from here," Harry continued. "Use my invisibility cloak; stay hidden. I don't care where you go, just make sure you keep the wrapping on the shield, and you don't let it fall into Voldemort's hands. Do you understand?"

"I… yes," he stammered, accepting the cloak shakily from Harry. "What will you do?"

"I'm going to give you time to escape," Harry explained. "I figure I'll use the broom to fly over the Dementors and Death Eaters, and hopefully I can get to level ground so I can fight them off properly."

"Fight!" Peter whimpered. "Forget fighting! Go straight to Hogwarts!"

"I need to distract them," Harry said much more calmly than he felt. "And that means I need to keep them occupied long enough for you to get out of here and apparate away. Can you do that?"

Peter was clearly very, very nervous about the plan, but even though he was now reformed, he was still a follower, and reacted best when given orders. "I can," he confirmed. "Just say when."

Harry winced as a jet of red light ricocheted off the entrance. "Now. Go!" He barely noticed Peter pulling on the cloak and disappearing into the gloom of the cave, too intent on racing towards the cave entrance before the Death Eaters and Dementors blocked it off. Bursting into the open air, he saw in horror that they were less than fifty feet away, and he was already feeling woozy from the Dementors.

.:Fly, Master! Now:. Decimare bellowed, and Harry snapped out of his daze, pushed down the cold touch of the Dementors, and launched into the sky. Sending random jets of light at the group below him, Harry successfully managed to make them follow him as he swept down the side of the mountain, with the furious Death Eaters hot on his heels, and the Dementors not far behind, their rattling breath sucking all the heat from the already freezing air.

Spotting a clearing below, Harry briefly considered abandoning the plan and fleeing for dear life, but he remembered Decimare's words about how the shield _had _to be protected at all costs, and he knew the snake wouldn't lie to him about such an important thing. He therefore pulled the broom around, and resolutely dropped into the clearing, which was only a few hundred meters from the outskirts of Hogsmeade.

_Maybe I could make it to Hogsmeade and get help, _he wondered.

.:Too late for that now:. Decimare hissed warningly as the Dementors burst into the clearing, encircling him completely on all sides. .:They are faster than humans, as they glide rather than run:.

Harry didn't hesitate. He was already feeling sick from their proximity, and didn't want it to get worse than it already was. Fixing the image of his first meeting with his father firmly in his mind, Harry summoned all the feelings of happiness and hope that he could muster, and screamed, "_Expecto Patronum!" _

To be continued…

AN: Yes, it's true. Despite all odds, I _finally _updated. I have no excuse, other than that I'm really lazy. I was getting sidetracked with other things, but I sat down today and decided to read Dream Come True from start to finish, and it struck me that I hadn't updated in an eternity. This made me feel very, very bad, so, like Pettigrew, I will now attempt to atone for my ways by updating as much as possible. I've got about six essays coming up, but I'll still try to update as often as possible. I have renewed love for this story, and I will not abandon it again! So it is written, so it shall be done!


	33. Inferno

Disclaimer: I own nothing! Except the plot, granted, although sometimes that's rather questionable…

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Thirty-Three: Inferno

"_Expecto Patronum_!"

An ethereal stag burst forth from Harry's wand and charged furiously towards the wall of Dementors, throwing them back with its glittering antlers and diamond-hard hooves. The Dementors shrieked in dismay as the stag pushed them backwards, until they were no longer able to stand up to the awesome power of the Patronus, and were forced to melt away into the dark forest.

Harry sighed in relief as the stag trotted back to him, inclining its great head before him as he reached out to pat the glowing animal. Before his fingers could touch the Patronus, it winked at him and disappeared in a flash of silver light, leaving Harry standing alone in the clearing, with only his wand, his broom, and a possessed sword.

.:Don't relax just yet:. Decimare rebuked. .:There are still Death Eaters out there:. Indeed, the patch of forest directly in front of Harry was lighting up with brilliant glowing beams that could only be produced by a wizard's wand. That, or Muggle fireworks, but Harry somehow doubted that was the case.

'What do I do?' he thought quickly, glancing towards his Firebolt, which had somehow ended up across the clearing sometime during the scuffle. 'Can I get out of here?'

.:Peter Pettigrew has not yet Apparated away:. the snake informed him. .:You will have to stay and fight:.

An instant later, cloaked figures burst into view from the concealment of the tall oak trees, forming a crude semicircle of glistening skull masks and bristling wands. 'Well, bugger _that_,' Harry thought derisively. 'I'm out of here!'

.:Then Merlin's shield is as good as the Dark Lord's:. Decimare snapped. .:You need to stall for time:.

'What's so important about this stupid shield anyway?' Harry hissed as the Death Eaters completed their semicircle in front of him. He flinched as one Death Eater moved to cast a spell, but was relieved to note that another Death Eater had stepped forward and given him a disapproving look. A Death Eater with a commanding, somewhat intimidating presence, and long, white-blonde hair…

"Aw crud…" Harry moaned as Lucius Malfoy threw aside his mask carelessly and gave him a calculating look. Smirking evilly, Malfoy pointed his wand at Harry, as his cronies leered menacingly behind him. Harry glanced around quickly for an escape route, but he was facing a labyrinth of trees behind him, and his Firebolt was way too far away for him to acquire without magic. Seeking at least some minimal form of cover, Harry backed up so that most of his torso was hidden behind an overhanging tree branch, but he knew it wouldn't help much.

_Well, as Sirius always says: when you have no other options, attack. _Forcing his features into an emotionless mask, Harry gave Lucius an unimpressed look as the imposing man stalked forward. Somewhat taken aback by his sudden display of nerve, Malfoy ground to a halt and decided to go with plan B instead.

'What do you suppose plan A was?' Harry thought in mild amusement as Lucius took a step back and withdraw his wand. 'Strangle me with his bare hands?'

.:Pay attention:. Decimare scolded, causing Harry to wince and refocus on the elder Malfoy.

"I know for a fact that you have Merlin's shield, Potter," Lucius snarled, getting straight to the point. "I also know that you have been in contact with Peter Pettigrew, who stole the shield in the first place from the Dark Lord."

"To be fair, he stole it from my vault even before that," Harry pointed out.

"Silence!" Malfoy snapped. "We have… regrettably lost track of Pettigrew, but I know the meeting took place, and I know that you have the shield. However, we do not know where you have put it, so I'm going to give you one chance to walk away from this encounter alive. Give me the shield!"

Harry tightened his grip on his wand as the Death Eaters behind Malfoy shuffled restlessly. _I need to stall, _he realized. _Peter isn't gone yet. But how?_

.:Try singing opera:. Decimare suggested dryly. .:It seemed to work for you before:.

"What's so great about this shield anyway?" Harry asked conversationally, taking a couple steps back as inconspicuously as possible. _Maybe if I can get far enough away, I can summon my broom, and get out of here before they can respond…_

Malfoy gave him an incredulous look, and his cronies snorted contemptuously. "You've got to be joking, Potter. You honestly don't know what you're protecting?"

As the dark clouds shifted overhead, the moonlight shone brighter on the clearing, and Harry discovered that he only recognized Malfoy; the others he'd never seen before.

"Of course I know," Harry responded automatically. "I just wanted to know if you knew." He realized it sounded absolutely ridiculous, but there it was. _It's not like I took Stalling for Time 101!_

Sneering, Malfoy gestured for silence as he took another step forward, causing Harry to back peddle twice in response. "You really have no idea what Merlin's shield is," he said in amazement. "How could you steal something and not know what it was? I suppose that fool Dumbledore put you up to it."

"Yeah, he did," Harry lied. "Since I probably won't survive this, how about you tell me what it does?" He glanced over at the broom, but it was too far for him to summon in time to escape with. _This isn't going to work_, he thought anxiously.

.:Pettigrew and the shield are almost gone:. Decimare reported. .:He is hurrying to a point where the Death Eaters will not detect him. It should only be a few more minutes:.

"How do you know that?" Harry hissed.

.:Merlin's shield and Slytherin's sword have been joined for almost a millennia:. Decimare hissed indignantly. .:You think I can't tell when my counterpart is nearby:.

'Well, _sorry_," he sighed.

What followed would be one of the strangest events of Harry's life, and that was certainly saying something. Lucius, apparently not wanting to hurt him before he could retrieve the shield, cast harmless jinxes at Harry every so often, which Harry was forced to deflect and return, although Harry couldn't see for the life of him what the point of the whole thing was.

"Merlin's shield, as its name suggests, was created by the wizard Merlin during the Medieval Ages," Lucius explained, flinging a disarming hex at Harry, who dispelled it easily. "It was his crowning achievement, and into it he poured all the magical knowledge he'd ever acquired in the field of protection. He also put a great deal of his own magic into it, and it is because of this that the shield is one of the most sought after items in the entire world."

"So it's got a famous maker," Harry snorted. "Whoop-de-doo. Why do you want it so badly, then? Oh, and also, _Stupefy!_"

Malfoy deflected the curse and continued, a calculating look on his face.

"The shield is very… attractive," he explained. "It is a good shield, and the Dark Lord likes things that… er… match his ensemble. _Rictusempra_!"

Harry gave him a disbelieving look and dodged the curse.

.:He isn't telling you the truth:. Decimare noted.

"I'm surprised," Harry taunted, "I always thought the Dark Lord was more of the pink and purple type, myself. You know, frills and ribbons and the like. I wouldn't expect a nasty old shield to match well with that. _Furnunculus!_"

"What makes Merlin's shield so astonishing, you ignoramus," Malfoy sneered, "is that it is the only object in existence capable of deflecting the killing curse." Harry paled. "Yes, Potter, you heard me. Merlin's shield can deflect, and reflect, any curse in existence, _including _Avada Kedavra. As long as his reflexes aren't utterly atrocious, the bearer of this shield would be completely invincible in every way."

Unable to come up with a response, Harry just stared at the blonde man in awe. Then a thought struck him, and he had to forcibly prevent himself from committing suicide on the spot.

'Why the _hell _did you have me get rid of the shield?' Harry demanded furiously of Decimare. 'Malfoy and his idiotic minions wouldn't be able to _touch _me what that thing on my side!'

Decimare sniffed in disgust. .:Honestly, Master, you think I didn't consider that? This new confidence of yours seems to have addled your already minimal wits! You have no idea of how to use a shield! You've never touched one in your life! How do you think you could have wielded it against fifteen Death Eaters who've been cursing things their whole lives:.

'Still,' Harry snapped peevishly. 'You might have at least told me what the damn thing could do, so I wouldn't have to hear it from Malfoy, of all people.'

.:Maybe if you stopped running off half-cocked and listened to me for once, you would have gotten that explanation:. Decimare hissed reproachfully. .:And I think you just missed the point of Malfoy's speech. He just gave you something to throw back in his face. Again, _pay attention_:.

_He gave me something to use against him? _Harry pondered, watching as the man gave him a sneer, obviously waiting for a response. When he didn't get the response, Malfoy hurled another disarming hex at him, which he dodged again. Then it came to him.

'That's why he isn't casting the killing curse!' he realized. 'Because I could reflect it back at him and kill him!'

.:Brilliant as ever:. Decimare drawled.

Meanwhile, Malfoy was growing rather bored of their little conversation. "Just hand over the shield, Potter. I won't even kill you once I get it; you can go free, as a gift from me to you. Just _give me the shield_!"

"Oh, I don't think so," Harry laughed, backing up slightly, and noticed with satisfaction that Malfoy was looking paler than usual. The Death Eaters behind him weren't looking too hot either. At Malfoy's command, they shot a volley of hexes at him, but Harry's _Protego _charm took care of that nicely. "As long as I've got this shield, you won't use the killing curse. It's too dangerous, and you know it."

As Malfoy's face lit with a malicious smirk, Harry suddenly got the impression that he'd messed up somehow. In his head, he could hear Decimare give a mournful sigh. 'What?' he thought furiously. 'What did I do?'

"Yes, Potter," Lucius sneered, resuming his advance, twirling his thin wand between his pale fingers. "The killing curse is, as you say, too dangerous. However, I think my companions would survive a stunning curse well enough, don't you? And I while you apparently have enough strength to deflect fifteen curses, how well would you hold up if they kept coming, over and over? Hopefully," he continued, smirking evilly, "this will inspire you to extract Merlin's shield from wherever you stashed it, and hand it over without further incident."

_This can't be good, _Harry winced, eyes widening as Malfoy took several steps back to give his cohorts a better shot. _What do I do?_

.:If there were only a few, I'd suggest drawing me and cutting their insignificant hearts out:. Decimare drawled sadistically. .:But with this many… fleeing is always an option:.

'What?' Harry hissed furiously. 'I thought Peter was still here!'

.:Oh no, he Apparated away some time ago:. the snake replied absently, his tiny metallic form twisting away from the handle of the long sword to give their opponents a once over.

Harry closed his eyes with a sigh. 'Decimare, your timing _really _needs work!'

.:I don't see what you're so upset about:. Decimare snapped. .:It's not as if you could have escaped anyway. You're outnumbered fifteen to one, in case you'd forgotten, and your escape route is very much out of reach:.

'So what am I supposed to do?' he demanded.

.:I would suggest ducking:. Decimare remarked pointedly. .:Now, if possible:.

Cursing, Harry fell flat to the ground as fifteen stunners streaked over his head. Scrambling to his feet, Harry stumbled backwards as Malfoy raised his wand to signal another volley. 'What now?' he thought anxiously.

.:Use your imagination:. Decimare retorted.

"Protego!" Harry shouted, and the silvery shield that appeared in midair before him visibly wavered as it the hexes pounded into it. He readied himself for the next volley, and was shoved a foot backward from the force of the fifteen curses striking his already weakening shield. After the third volley, Malfoy was eyeing him suspiciously.

"What?" he snapped testily. "Stop staring and finish me off already!"

"Why aren't you using the shield?" Lucius said slowly, eyeing him with a critical eye. "Crucio!" Harry dodged wildly as the curse spiralled past him, causing Malfoy to frown. "I don't understand you, Potter. You have the greatest magical protective device in history at your disposal, yet you refuse to use it. There is no reason why you would do this… unless…" he trailed off as his eyes glinted maliciously.

_I'm doomed_, Harry thought with finality. _He's caught on_.

"You don't have the shield, do you, Potter?" Malfoy snarled. "Show it to me! If you have it, then prove it!"

Having been backing up this whole time, Harry was forced to stop when his back collided with the trunk of a mighty oak tree. He briefly considered just turning and running into the forest, but highly doubted he'd get more than fifty feet before he was taken down. _At least I can go down fighting, _he thought gloomily.

"You're right, Malfoy, I don't have the shield," Harry admitted, giving the blonde a triumphant grin. "And thanks to my diversion, Peter and the shield are long gone from here. I guess that means that I win, and you lose."

Malfoy gave a horrendous snarl, before recovering his composure and replacing the mocking sneer on his face. "It seems you've won this little battle, Potter. Fortunately for us, you won't win the next, as you won't be around to see it. Say hello to the devil for me, Potter. Tell him Hell will soon be packed with innocent lives!"

"Tell him yourself!"

Harry jumped backwards in shock, crashing painfully into the tree trunk, as James Potter leaped out in front of him and knocked Malfoy halfway across the clearing with a powerful hurling hex.

"Dad!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

James glanced back at his son, frowned, and then turned back to the Death Eaters and hastily erected a glowing golden shield to give them so breathing room. The Death Eaters weren't attacking though. _I guess they can't attack unless Malfoy orders it. _He glanced at his father. _He's not pleased, _Harry realized unhappily.

.:I wonder why:. Decimare snapped. .:Sneaking off in the middle of the night? Not one of your brightest moves:.

'It was _your _idea!' Harry protested. Decimare didn't dignify that with a response.

"What's the big idea, trying to kill my son?" James demanded of Malfoy, who was pulling himself to his feet with a pained groan. "Are you completely out of your mind? You're within sight of Hogsmeade! Did you honestly think no one would notice?"

"Maybe you should have stayed in the castle like a good boy, James," Lucius snarled. "I don't deny that you're a passable duellist, but you're still outnumbered fifteen to two. _Crucio!_"

"Fifteen to three," Sirius snapped, leaping out of the shadows to push his friend out of harm's way. "You picked the wrong kid to go after, Malfoy. I suggest you leave before you get seriously hurt. Crucio!"

The Death Eaters scattered as the curse streaked toward them, giving the three good guys time to regroup and get together in a more defensive position. While Sirius and James kept the Death Eaters busy with random curses, Harry glanced around for an escape route, and couldn't for the life of him figure out what to do.

'Do we even have a shot at surviving this?' Harry asked despondently as the Death Eaters prowled closer, causing Sirius and James to take a cautionary step back.

.:You always have a shot:. Decimare admitted. .:Although in this case, I may have to make an exception:.

'Couldn't we Apparate? Hermione told me about side-along Apparation a couple weeks ago!'

.:The Death Eaters could trace your signature and follow you:. Decimare explained. .:You'd need to get them pretty rattled before you tried such a clumsy maneuver:.

"Great," Harry mumbled. "Just great. My stupidity is going to get not only me killed, but my father and godfather as well. Brilliant, Harry, just brilliant."

"No one is going to die," Sirius snapped. "Come here, Harry. We're going to get out of this."

"How do you know?" Harry demanded.

Sirius gave him a grim look. "How are James and I going to ground you for the rest of your life if we die?"

"Good point," he muttered. "Do you have a plan?"

"Just one," James piped in, shoving them back so that they were flat against a large oak tree, with an army of Death Eaters advancing in front, hurling hex after hex, which Sirius and James had an increasingly difficult time deflecting. "Although I highly doubt it's going to work. As long as we have the one, secret ingredient we need, though, we at least have a fighting chance."

Sirius rummaged through his pockets, and then cursed. "We left the butter beer at Hogwarts, Prongs."

James sighed. "Well, that's it, we're doomed."

Harry gave the duo a disbelieving look. "That's it? That's your grand rescue plan? Oh, well done!"

"If you hadn't gotten into this situation in the _first _place," James hissed, giving his son an evil glare, which Harry returned immediately. Sirius nudged them both as Malfoy called a halt to the barrage and began speaking again.

"Isn't this quaint?" Malfoy sneered, watching the three of them with pleasure as they exchanged panicked looks. "Father, son, and wretched mongrel, together for the last time. It's so touching, I could almost cry."

"Go wild," Sirius suggested, glancing at James and whispering something that Harry couldn't understand. Harry watched the duo out of the corner of his eye as James hissed something back at Sirius, who responded with a gesture Harry couldn't make out.

"I'm afraid tears aren't on the agenda for this evening," Malfoy shrugged. "On my part, anyway. As for you, however… well, I've cast the Cruciatus curse a thousand times, and I can assure you, on matter how strong the person I curse, _every _time they cry before the end." He leered suggestively at James, who glared. "I've been waiting for a long time to see you suffer, Potter. It seems my wait is finally at an end. Crucio!"

Sirius and James dived out of the way, dragging Harry with them as they crashed down on the hard forest floor. As Malfoy cackled maliciously and drew his wand back for a second go, Harry whispered furiously, "Apparate away! You don't have to die because of me!"

.:I thought I told you that won't work:. Decimare hissed.

"Don't be stupid," Sirius snapped. "We still have one trick left."

"We do?" Harry said sceptically, but before he could receive an answer, they were diving again as another hail of curses flew at them.

Sirius smiled mysteriously. "When there's a will, there's a way. We've got the will…"

"And I've got the way," James concluded. "Stand back, Harry, things are going to get a little hot."

Not entirely sure what was going on, Harry watched as James turned and strode away from he and Sirius, causing Malfoy to call a halt to the attack again to see what his enemy was up to. His confusion grew as James suddenly pocketed his wand, apparently about to face Malfoy empty handed.

"Are you mad?" Malfoy gaped. "Well, no matter. It doesn't matter how I kill you, Potter, whether you have a wand or not. It's just not as much fun if you don't fight back."

"Then get ready for some fun," James returned, eyes narrowing in concentration. All of a sudden, his hands snapped out in front of him, and Harry watched in shock as a ball of molten fire began to grow between them, getting larger and larger as his father moved his hands outward. Eyes widening in shock, Malfoy moved to give his Death Eaters the order to attack, or perhaps even to retreat, but it was too late.

With a vicious snarl, James flung out his hands, casting the gigantic flaming orb directly at the masked men. It whistled piercingly as it flew across the clearing, before bowling straight into the Death Eaters, lighting them on fire as it simultaneously scattered them across the ground from the force of the impact.

Gaping at the carnage his father had just wrought, Harry barely noticed as Sirius grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the scene. He could dimly make out his father drawing his wand and saying something, causing Harry's Firebolt to zoom into his waiting hand. As James rushed over and forced the broom into his shell-shocked son's hands, Harry spotted Lucius Malfoy stagger upright, face burnt raw from the heat of the flames.

"You'll pay for this, Potter!" he bellowed, then screamed in pain and collapsed to the ground as his robe caught alight with flames.

"Fly, Harry," Sirius ordered, as he and James urged the dazed boy away from the inferno. "Fly to Hogwarts, and go to Dumbledore's office. We'll meet you there! Go!"

Harry's mind was too bewildered to take in their words. Reformed traitors, invincible shields, near death experiences – those, he could handle. But what his father had done had been… well, impossible, for starters! He just couldn't cope with something he had been taught for four year was unfeasible: wand less magic!

Then Decimare snapped forcefully .:Get a grip! Pull yourself together, Master! You need to get out of here before the whole forest burns down! Or at least before those Death Eaters recover and come after you:.

Harry just stood there as James and Sirius cajoled him with incomprehensible words.

.:Right, this is just getting pathetic:. Decimare declared irritably. .:GET ON THAT BROOM! NOW! OR I'LL TAKE OVER YOUR BODY AND DO IT FOR YOU! AND BELIEVE ME, POSSESSION IS NOT PLEASANT:.

That got Harry's attention. Mind grounding into gear, Harry grabbed the Firebolt from his father and gave him a nod. Realizing his son had snapped out of it and was back to his old, somewhat lacking-in-common-sense self, James repeated his instructions so that Harry was sure of what he was doing.

"Hogwarts, Dumbledore's office," Harry affirmed. "Got it." He paused and smiled sheepishly. "Uh… thanks, Dad, Sirius. Er… that is..."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Apologize later, Harry! Go!"

Nodding once more for good measure, Harry took a last glance at his father and godfather, before launching into the sky with a whoosh. As he spiralled up into the starry sky, he looked down just in time to see his guardians Disapparate with a pop. A feeling of relief settled over Harry for the first time that evening, and he was able to make his way to Gryffindor tower without any major mishaps.

As soon as Hogwarts castle came into view, Harry veered up towards the tallest tower, which housed the Headmaster's office. He was tempted to just fly back to his dorm and forget the whole thing occurred, but he knew James and Sirius would be waiting for him, and he'd just get in more trouble if he avoided them. Soaring round the divination tower, Harry relaxed his grip on the broom as he strategized his next move.

_Well, I clearly can't pretend the whole thing didn't happen, because there were witnesses, _he realized, _but I just as clearly can't tell the truth._

.:No, because then they would ask why the Death Eaters thought _you _had the shield, and then they'd find out about Pettigrew, and the Chamber, and me, and they may even get that Tristan child involved:. Decimare affirmed. .:Telling the truth is not an option:.

'Then what do I tell them?' Harry demanded, twisting the handle to avoid Gryffindor tower, and was once again seized with the urge to pretend he'd been there the whole time, and not off cavorting around with reformed traitors and Death Eaters. 'That I was out for a midnight stroll, and the Death Eaters just _happened _to come along and try to kill me?'

.:Unless you have a better idea:. Decimare replied dryly.

'How about if I just tell Dumbledore the truth?' Harry thought suddenly. 'What's the worst that could happen? If this shield is so powerful, and you're so powerful, wouldn't Dumbledore be glad that I told him where you two are? Surely his happiness at recovering two magical items of such importance would lessen his anger towards me for taking you in the first place.'

.:Or he may kill you for knowing too much:. the snake hissed evilly.

Harry snorted. 'Sure, Decimare, whatever. You really think I should lie?'

.:You should lie, and you should continue lying until I tell you otherwise:. Decimare snapped. .:Eventually your Headmaster will need to know about me, and about where the shield is, but right now that isn't necessary. I've been looking around while you were busy chasing after Miss Weasley and getting yourself into detentions with Madam Umbridge, and I can tell you for a fact that Dumbledore has enough on his plate already without the knowledge of where the shield and I are:.

'What does it matter if he knows?' Harry demanded. 'Surely it would give him peace of mind, not give him even more to worry about!'

.:Right now, your Headmaster thinks the sword and shield are safe. Disappeared off the face of the planet, yes, but for the moment, safe. This gives him peace of mind, and I would think you'd be loathe to ruin that:.

'Plus, he'd probably take you away, perform experiments on you, and withhold information from me that would lead me to a confrontation with the Dark Lord at the end of the year,' Harry noted with no small amount of sarcasm. 'Lying it is. But what do I say?'

.:Make it up as you go:. Decimare suggested. .:We're here:.

Pulling the broom to a smooth halt, Harry swerved towards an open window, and leaped gracefully off the broom to land with a thud in a small room which must have been off Dumbledore's office, right beside a shelf full of what looked like shrunken heads. Wrinkling his nose in distaste, Harry quickly swung the broom over his shoulder and made his way through the only door in the room, which was large, heavy, and quite a challenge to open.

The room he found himself in was without a doubt Dumbledore's office; the whirling silver contraptions, and half-moulted Phoenix were a sure sign of that. Seated behind the large oak desk in the middle of the room was none other than Albus Dumbledore, snoozing on top of a pile of books that looked as ancient as he did. Tiptoeing forward, Harry felt something slide up his hand and settle around his finger, and realized Decimare had returned to ring form to avoid recognition.

"Uh… sir?" he asked tentatively, and was slightly startled when the old man's head jerked upright, and he leapt to his feet with a grace far younger than his years.

"Harry?" Dumbledore said curiously, staring at the dirt-covered, blood-streaked boy before him. "Why are you up at this time of the night?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," James announced, striding into the office, with Sirius half a step behind, both looking incredibly grim. "He was almost about to be blasted into a billion pieces when we found him."

He and the Headmaster exchanged a meaningful look, and Harry saw Dumbledore's eyes widen with understanding. _How can he just look at Dad, and know what happened? _Harry thought incredulously. _Is he reading his mind?_

.:Legilimancy:. Decimare explained. .:It's somewhat like Muggle mind reading, but much, much more. I am fairly certain that someone mentioned its counter, Occlumency, to you, although I cannot recall when that occurred:.

Dumbledore cleared his throat, pulling Harry's attention back to the wizened old Headmaster, and Harry nearly gulped as the man's piercing blue eyes bore deeply into his own emerald orbs. 'Can he read my mind?' he thought anxiously.

.:I am protecting your mind from invasion:. the snake replied primly.

'You can do that?' Harry demanded in astonishment.

.:I can do a lot of things:. Decimare hissed reproachfully. .:Something you should have realized by now, if you'd been paying an iota of attention:.

"Harry," Dumbledore said slowly and clearly. "I want you to tell me exactly what happened this evening. And please do not leave anything out. Even the tiniest detail could give an insight into what has occurred."

.:Good:. Decimare said, pleased. .:He's not blaming you for what happened. Just play the innocent school boy, and everything should go smoothly:.

"I… well…" Harry trailed off, unsure of what to say. He wasn't any good at lying! Where were the twins when you needed them?

"Harry," Sirius said sternly, "the truth."

Harry gulped. "Oh, alright. Me and Ginny's two month anniversary is coming up, and I wanted to surprise her with a nice gift… from Hogsmeade, you know. So I got my cloak and my broom, and decided to go get one."

"In the middle of the night," James said flatly.

"She's always around during the day!" Harry protested. "What was I supposed to do, knock her out and sneak off while she was unconscious? Night was the only time I _could _go!"

"The shops would be closed," Sirius pointed out.

"That never stopped _you_," Harry noted. "I would have figured out a way. I just wanted to get her something nice, but then everything went wrong."

"So you snuck out of Hogwarts and made your way to Hogsmeade," Dumbledore recapped. "At what point did you meet up with the Death Eaters?"

"Uh…"

.:On the way there:. Decimare prompted.

"On the way there," Harry repeated obediently. "I landed outside of the town – you know, so I didn't wake anybody up – and I'd barely gotten off my broom when they showed up."

"What did they want?" the Headmaster prodded.

Harry scratched his head as he stalled for time. "Well, they didn't really say, did they? I'm guessing they just wanted to kill me, in the name of the Dark Lord and all that. Surely they'd get a big promotion if they were the ones to bring the head of Harry Potter back to Voldemort?"

"Perhaps," Dumbledore said noncommittally. "Do you know how _they _knew what you were up to?"

Wincing, Harry stammered, "I expect they were, you know, on their way to get a drink from the Hog's Head, and they just happened to stumble across me. I don't know, really. I was just trying to get an anniversary present."

As Dumbledore turned to James and Sirius and conferred quietly with them, Decimare reported .:Well done, Master. They do not suspect you in the slightest. Well, your guardians do appear to be furious with you for sneaking off in the middle of the night, but I don't believe they will punish you too much. I believe they think the whole thing rather romantic:.

'Those old softies,' Harry thought in relief. 'I'm off the hook, then?'

.:It appears so:. the snake agreed. .:However, that does not mean this whole event didn't occur. Mister Pettigrew is still out there somewhere with the shield, and although I doubt he'll contact you for some time, you need to be ready when that happens, so you can retrieve it without a similar incident occurring:.

'I won't be so foolish next time,' Harry informed him. 'Starting tomorrow, you're going to teach me how to use a shield properly. Then, when I have a chance to use a magical, invincible shield, I won't have to give it to a pathetic excuse for a wizard and nearly get myself killed trying to provide a decent distraction.'

.:I must say, your vocabulary has been improving in leaps and bounds:. Decimare commented out of the blue. .:It must be from spending so much time with me:.

'Yeah, that's likely,' Harry snorted. 'Have you ever considered I'm just getting smarter?'

.:When it comes to you? Highly doubtful:.

'Way to have faith in me,' he said wryly.

.:Ah, now there's that pre-school vocabulary I have come to know and expect:. Decimare drawled, causing Harry to roll his eyes. Their mental conversation was fortunately called to an end when Dumbledore, James, and Sirius broke their group huddle, and the aged Headmaster turned to regard Harry once more with those piercing blue eyes. When their eyes met, however, Harry felt a strange jolt in the pit of his stomach, and he felt an insane urge to… attack him? Startled, and more than a little terrified by this extreme reaction, Harry instantly averted his eyes, and, as Decimare would later tell him, so did Dumbledore.

"Harry, we have decided to overlook this matter as an unfortunate accident," Dumbledore announced. "You will receive a week's detention for leaving school grounds, and lose fifty points for being out after curfew."

"Yes, sir," Harry agreed instantly, glad it wasn't more severe. He suspected James and Sirius had played a large part in the lightness of his sentence. "What about… er… the Death Eaters?"

"We shall look into it," he promised, removing his half-moon spectacles and polishing them absently on his embroidered maroon robes. Beside him, Sirius and James exchanged looks, and Harry realized that they would be doing some investigating of their own, independent of the Order of the Phoenix. He hoped their search proved ineffective, or he would have a _lot _of explaining to do.

"Harry, _never _leave the school grounds again without permission, do you hear me?" James demanded, giving his son such a stern look that Harry couldn't help but wince and duck his head down awkwardly.

"I know we can't stop you from violating curfew," Sirius added, giving him a slightly amused glance, "as you're too much like us for that to happen. I just want you to promise me that you'll use discretion in your night time wanderings, alright? Hogwarts isn't very dangerous right now, but every second that Voldemort lives makes it that much more unsafe."

"I can do that," Harry said instantly. "I mean, I _will _do that. Don't worry, I've learned my lesson."

The three men regarded him sombrely, and Harry did his best to maintain a remorseful expression. He just hoped that Decimare was doing his job in blocking Dumbledore from reading his mind, because if he wasn't, Harry would be expelled faster than you could say Quidditch.

_I _have_ learned my lesson_, he thought with grim smile. _Next time, I won't get caught._

To be continued…

A/N: Ha ha! I'm updating regularly now, aren't I? Go me! Well, Harry's gotten past this situation well enough, but what will happen to Peter and the shield? Stay tuned, and please REVIEW!


	34. Thestrals and Mistletoe

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except the plot, and, of course, Tristan.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Thirty Four: Thestrals and Mistletoe

'Okay, what just happened in there?' Harry demanded furiously to his serpentine counterpart as he stormed his way towards Gryffindor tower at three in the morning, Firebolt slung over his shoulder, scowl firmly in place. "I looked at Dumbledore, and suddenly I had an urge to kill him! That _can't _be normal!"

.:It isn't:. Decimare agreed slowly. .:It was only when you looked him directly in the eyes, yes:.

'Right,' Harry agreed, nodding absently to himself as he waved his wand over the portrait of a two-horned unicorn to open up the secret passage concealed behind it. Ducking past the snorting creature, Harry crept forward into the tunnel, using the Lumos spell to keep his way lit. 'Am I suddenly going homicidal? Because if not, then what?'

.:Have you noticed Dumbledore avoiding eye contact with you in your past meetings:. Decimare inquired.

'Why?'

.:Because if he has been:. the snake continued, .:I think I have a pretty good idea of what's going on. And so does Dumbledore, from the looks of it:.

'Alright, I'll bite,' he gave in. 'What do you know that I don't?'

.:You remember the visions you've been having all summer, and off and on throughout the school year:. Decimare asked. .:All these visions are insights into one person's mind, and one person alone. Can you guess who that is:.

'Voldemort,' Harry sighed. 'This is because of my scar, isn't it? I can see visions of him because of this stupid cut on my forehead?'

.:More than that:. Decimare said grimly. .:If I am interpreting your Headmaster's actions correctly, I believe you are not just having visions of the Dark Lord. I believe you are actually going into his mind, and looking through his eyes during these visions. Do you know what that implies:.

Stumped, Harry just shrugged and continued his way down the cramped passage.

.:If you can see into his mind, then how long before he can see into yours:. Decimare explained. .:As a matter of fact, your Headmaster may believe this has already occurred. He may be distancing himself from you in an attempt to prevent Voldemort from gaining full access to your mind:.

More than a little astonished by the snake's words, Harry said slowly, 'But why would ignoring me slow Voldemort down?'

.:Because the Dark Lord fears Dumbledore:. Decimare said succinctly. .:And since you two are intrinsically bonded, should you form some kind of connection with the Headmaster, Voldemort may feel it and, as he did tonight, attempt to gain control and finish off his enemy once and for all. Possession is not fun, Master, and I'm certain your Headmaster's motives are to prevent you this experience for as long as possible:.

'Well, if this is such a big problem, why doesn't he just tell me what Voldemort's up to?' Harry demanded. 'If I were prepared, wouldn't that give me a better chance of fighting him off when the time came?'

.:I can't pretend to understand his reasons for keeping this a secret from you:. Decimare admitted. .:Just as I can't pretend to understand his reasons for keeping this a secret from your father and godfather:.

'They don't know?' Harry gaped.

.:Don't you think they would have told you if they knew:. Decimare demanded. .:Master, your guardians may coddle you at times, but they truly believe you are old enough to take care of yourself, and would tell you if they had the chance. Your Headmaster, for whatever reason, still seeks to protect you from the evils of the world:.

'By ignoring me so Voldemort won't possess me?' he asked incredulously. 'How is that protecting me? Besides, I know about the evils of the world already.'

.:There is one thing you do not know:. the serpent disagreed. .:A huge thing, so important that it carries with it the fate of our world. The burden of knowing this thing is so great that Dumbledore has refrained from telling you all these years, in order to preserve your innocence and give you peace of mind:.

Dismayed by this knowledge, Harry was nevertheless seized with the desire to know what his Headmaster had been keeping from him. 'Well, what is it? Tell me, Decimare!'

.:I cannot:. he said simply.

Blinking in bewilderment, Harry stammered, 'But, why _not_?'

.:Because I do not know:. Decimare replied primly. .:I am connected to powers beyond your comprehension, Master, but I can only sense that there is this great information being kept from you, not what it actually is:.

'Then we need to find out!' Harry declared passionately. 'I'll go straight back to Dumbledore and demand he tell me!'

.:And then what:. Decimare snapped. .:Master, he's kept this from you for a reason, and we have to trust that they are valid ones. Albus Dumbledore is a wise man, no matter how many decisions he's made that you disagree with. I feel that you should not force the information from him until he is ready to give it to you:.

'So what do I do?' Harry demanded. 'There's something huge I'm missing, and while I'm waiting to learn what it is, I'm going to have Voldemort rooting around in my head, trying to possess me? Not bloody likely!'

.:You cannot take any visions you have as truth:. Decimare said simply. .:The Dark Lord could be changing them, or even making them up on the spot. You must trust only yourself, and what you perceive with your own eyes and ears:.

'What about possession?' he said somewhat hysterically. 'What then?'

.:When the time comes, you will just have to fight him off:. the snake shrugged. .:But until then, you will still have a Dark Lord poking around your mind, finding the best way to make use of you:.

'What about that… Occlu… er… that anti-mind reading thing you talked about?' Harry asked. 'That would help, wouldn't it?'

.:It is true that a master of Occlumency could repel the Dark Lord:. Decimare admitted. .:But I fear he will attack sooner rather than later, and you will not be nearly accomplished enough to fight him off in so short a time, no matter how much you practice. Occlumency takes years and years of practice, and that is time we simply don't have:.

'So Voldemort's just going to have free range of my mind until he gets tired of semi-possession and wants the whole thing?' Harry demanded furiously. 'Gee, _that _sounds just great!'

Decimare sniffed pompously. .:Don't be ridiculous, Master. The Dark Lord will not be having 'free range' of your mind, like you so barbarically put it. I have many abilities, as I have told you before, and one of those will allow me to keep the Dark Lord out of your mind… at least, until he finally decides to possess you fully. Then you are on your own, I'm afraid:.

'You can do that?' he said incredulously. 'But won't Voldemort suspect something if he suddenly can't access my mind?'

.:Oh, he will access your mind:. Decimare hissed. .:But it will only be a copy of your mind. I will dumb it down, make it infinitely stupider, and only place memories in it that are harmless and cannot possibly give him an advantage against you:.

'I get the memories part,' Harry said slowly, 'but the dumbing it down part?'

.:It will cause him to underestimate you:. the snake explained. .:I believe your friend Aberforth was lecturing you on that just last week:.

'I think so,' he said vaguely. 'I can't remember much, to tell you the truth. All his lessons kind of blend together.'

.:Then pay more attention:. Decimare snapped. .:You have a lot to learn from that man. But you will learn nothing at all if you collapse from exhaustion, both mental and physical. This conversation is over for now, and you need to go to bed. Good evening:.

Decimare fell silent, and Harry grumbled softly to himself as he trudged the last hundred metres or so to the portrait of the Fat Lady, who let him in after a few half-hearted protests about being woken up so late. Climbing up the staircase in his current state of exhaustion was almost more than Harry could handle, and by the time he had collapsed into bed, fully clothed, worries about the future – or about _anything_, for that matter – were the farthest things from his mind.

_Sleep, _Harry thought happily.

.:Pathetic:. Decimare sighed.

Monday heralded the return of Hagrid to the staff table, and therefore the return of his infamously dangerous, incredibly terrifying Care of Magical Creatures classes. As Harry, Ron, and Hermione trooped down through the deep snow to their friend and professor's cabin, Harry was plagued with guilt about leaving his friends out of the loop – especially now that Ginny was involved – but figured he'd wait until Christmas holidays to break the truth to them. Especially since Sirius and James reckoned he'd be done the Animagus transformation by then, so at least he'd be able to show them something impressive. _Hopefully they'll be so amazed they'll forget to hate me_, he thought glumly. _Sword training, false visions, magical shields… yep, they're going to kill me_.

When they arrived at Hagrid's ramshackle hut, the first thing they saw was Draco Malfoy, cackling with his goons Crabbe and Goyle over something or other. Having not been in very close contact with Draco for most of the year, Harry was almost surprised to see that the blonde stillactually _did _attend the school.

He attended it, alright, and any knowledge and wisdom he may have gleaned from his education had clearly had no effect on his personality, which was still as corrosive as Bubotuber pus.

"Potter!" he exclaimed in delight, handsome grey eyes twinkling merrily. "I'm so glad to see you!"

Harry blinked hard. _Or not_.

Beside him, Hermione scowled, frost-encrusted hair making her look rather like the abominable snowman. Ron was glaring furiously at the Slytherin trio, and unconsciously moved closer to Hermione. A warm, fuzzy feeling surrounded Harry's heart when he saw his friends standing up for him like this. Not to mention the feelings of affection they seemed to have developed for each other, whether they realized it or not.

"What do you want?" Harry demanded, giving the grinning blonde an unimpressed look. "Give up the friendly act, Malfoy, you've already tried that one."

"And if I recall correctly, you fell for it hook, line, and sinker," Malfoy smirked, then rolled his eyes as Hermione and Ron drew their wands threateningly. "Don't worry, Weasel, Mudblood, I'm not going to attack your precious Potter. I just wanted to hear about last night. I heard he had an absolute _blast_."

Harry's blood froze as his friends turned and gave him questioning looks, while Malfoy just smiled innocently.

'Damn it! Decimare, what do I do?'

.:His father obviously told him about last evening's occurrence:. Decimare opined.

Harry refrained from bashing the snake on the head, although that might have been in part because the snake was currently a ring wrapped around his finger, and thus rather difficult to properly hit. 'I _got _that,' he snarled. 'I mean, how do I play this out? Hermione and Ron don't know about you, the shield… anything!'

.:True:. the snake hissed thoughtfully. .:I would opt for pretending you don't know what he's talking about. He cannot really say anything further without giving himself away, and I am sure Malfoy senior has lectured his son on discretion:.

_Alright then, _Harry thought. _Discretion is my middle name._

"I don't know what you're talking about, Malfoy," he said coldly. "I think all that time down in the dark dungeons with only Crabbe and Goyle for company has addled your brains." He suddenly grinned maliciously as a thought struck him. "Unless the reason you're so out of it is because you _enjoy _being alone with these two. I've heard large men can be very satisfying lovers…"

Malfoy's jaw dropped in shock at the implication, especially since it came from Harry Potter, of all people.

.:I suspect someone is corrupting your innocence, although I cannot figure out who:. Decimare noted. .:Master, you are supposed to be the "good guy", not the "crass git":.

'Yeah,' Harry smirked, 'but you can't deny it was hilarious.' The snake's humph of disapproval just made him smile all the wider. Ron and Hermione weren't bothering to conceal their laughter either as Malfoy spluttered angrily, absolutely seething with fury.

"I don't understand," Goyle grumbled, shifting to regain some feeling of warmth in his oversized feet, and accidentally moving closer to Crabbe, causing them to bump together and go sprawling on the snow-covered ground. This only served to send the Gryffindor trio into another round of hysterics.

"That's vile, Potter!" Malfoy finally spat, regaining his composure and flicking his wand at his cronies, setting them on their feet with a levitation spell. "I have _not _been up to anything of the sort! Besides… how did you hear that thing about large men, hmmm? Be doing a little exploration of your own?"

The ball was back in Harry's court now, and he flushed just as brightly as Ron on a bad day. He could almost hear Sirius yelling at him in his head: 'Composure! Keep your composure!'

"I'm not the one spending every second of my time with two miniature trolls," Harry returned fiercely, and Ron clapped him on the back in congratulations, while Hermione, having grown a bit tired of the pathetic insults, retreated over to the animal pen to watch from a safe distance.

"At least my 'trolls' aren't filthy Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers!" Malfoy hissed, and Harry winced as Ron's ears went crimson and the redhead's wand flew towards the smirking blonde. Before any conflict could break out, Harry heard impossibly loud footsteps behind him, and the next moment Ron and Malfoy were hanging in midair, each grasped tightly in one enormous, clenched fist.

"Now, now, I won' be havin' none o' that 'ere," Hagrid rumbled, setting the two boys down as soon as they ceased struggling. As Ron righted himself, his ears were flaming and his robes were a dishevelled mess, but Harry was pleased to note that Malfoy wasn't much better off.

"Hey, Hagrid," Harry greeted. "Where's the rest of the… oh, there they are…" Sometime during their impromptu insult-match the remainder of the fifth year COMC class had snuck up on them, and had apparently been watching the exchange with great interest. He scowled darkly at the staring students, and they instantly averted their eyes towards Hagrid, who clapped Harry on the back, nearly knocking him over from the force of his blow.

"A'right, everyone's here, then? Excellent. Follow me." Without further ado Hagrid, hauling along a huge bag that seemed to be covered with bloodstains, traipsed off towards the Forbidden Forest, leaving thirty teenagers standing beside his cottage, looking more than a little confused by the whole affair. Not to mention terrified by the thought of entering the Forbidden Forest without twenty heavily armed Aurors for protection.

Groaning at having to take the lead yet again, Harry set off after Hagrid, giving Hermione a nod as he passed, prompting the girl to reach over and grab the still-fuming redhead's arm and drag him after their departing friend. Now that the Dream Team had accepted their imminent doom and disappeared into the dark forest, the rest of the class reluctantly picked up their book bags and followed the intrepid trio.

Hagrid led them for a good fifteen minutes before they finally came to a stop in a large, rather pleasant clearing. True, there was a distinct lack of birds' chirping, which might have had something to do with the pitiful amount of sunlight that speckled the forest floor, but overall it was quite an improvement over the rest of the Forbidden Forest. Harry told Ron and Hermione as much, and was rewarded with small grins of amusement.

"Today we're doin'… well, I'd tell yer, but maybe yeh should see it fer yerselves!" Reaching deep into his enormous overcoat, the half-giant pulled forth a massive container that, when opened, emitted the familiar, unpleasant scent of fresh blood, probably three or four hours old. Harry briefly reflected that it must be a messed up world if a fifteen year old boy can recognize the scent of blood at twenty paces, and distinguish how long ago it was drained from its host.

.:Look around:. Decimare instructed, and Harry obediently scanned the clearing. .:You'll notice that the only other person to recognize the scent is Draco Malfoy. What does that tell you:.

'That he gets hurt a lot?' Harry guessed, not really paying attention. His attention was more on his giant professor, who was currently pouring the liquid, now easily distinguishable as blood, all over the forest floor in no distinguishable pattern.

.:He's dangerous, and he should not be underestimated:. Decimare lectured. .:Watch out for that one:.

'Oh, come on,' Harry laughed as Hagrid stepped away from the spilt blood and gave a shrieking cry reminiscent of some giant bird. 'Next you'll be telling me that _Sirius _is dangerous.'

.:Your godfather is more formidable than you believe:. the snake hissed. .:And James Potter is no slouch, either. You would do well to remember that the next time they do their immaturity routine. They are anything but, and you can't forget that:.

Not entirely sure what to say to that, Harry settled for tuning out the serpent and focusing on his classmates, who were staring around in confusion as Hagrid whistled merrily to himself. Just as Harry was about to ask just _what _they were waiting for, a dark head poked out between the branches near his head, quickly followed by a half equine, half draconic body. What was even more startling about the strange horselike creature was the fact that it had wings, massive black, scaly wings, that sent one heck of a chill up Harry's spine.

"I've seen those before," Harry whispered to Ron, who was still staring around blankly. "They pull the carriages!"

"What are you on about?" Ron demanded, giving Harry a suspicious look. "There's nothing here."

Suddenly Hagrid turned and rummaged in the sack he'd brought along, and grunted in effort as he pulled out a large chunk of what looked like dragon meat. He then turned and threw it on top of the blood, which was shocking enough, but when the winged horse-creatures suddenly began tearing chunks off with their teeth, it was enough to send several girls into hysterics.

Hermione's eyes widened in recognition as Harry whispered, "Thestrals."

"You can see them?" she babbled excitedly, causing an irritated expression to grow on Ron's face, as he clearly had no idea what was going on. "I wish I could!"

"No, you don't," Harry said quietly. "Do you really wish you'd seen someone die?"

As Hermione grew deathly silent, Hagrid stepped up and began his lesson, which was surprisingly informative for the attentive students. They weren't usually as interested in his classes, to be honest, but as the Thestrals were not only invisible, but had very large, very sharp teeth, every person was eager to be on their best behaviour. No one wanted to do a Draco Malfoy and end up with their arm being savaged by one of the mystical beasts.

The next week passed without incident, and by the time the last week of term rolled around, Harry was more than ready for the Christmas break to begin. The only thing of real importance left was the final DA meeting before Christmas, in which Harry planned to review everything they'd done so far.

While Harry had been lounging about in the Chamber of Secrets, the members of the DA, under the direction of Hermione, since he, Harry, was indisposed, progressed in leaps and bounds, mastering spells at a fantastic rate that had impressed Harry immensely upon his return. The basics he'd taught them, combined with Hermione's technical know-how, had achieved amazing results, and now he could proudly say that every single member of the DA was capable of handling themselves in a fight… at least, as long as they were backed up by about twenty other people. They weren't amazing, it was true, but they were certainly casting at the fifth year level, and that was all Harry asked for.

When Harry arrived at the Room of Requirements, however, he was met with a sight that would shock and horrify his eyes for years to come. Dobby, and for some reason, Missy, were scrambling around the room, putting the finishing touches on their creation, which turned out to be a massive Christmas tree trimmed in the shape of Harry himself. Hanging off his arms/branches were hundreds of little ornaments shaped like lightening bolts, and at the tip of his leafy head was a giant, gaudy golden Snitch.

"Sir!" Missy squealed, and she and Dobby appeared before him with a crack. "Missy is so glad to see you! Is sir liking the decorations?"

"We is working so hard on them to make sure that Harry Potter likes them!" Dobby said earnestly, bulb-like eyes wide with glee.

"Er… I do like them," Harry lied. "Very much. Thank you." Then, unable to wait any longer: "Missy, what are you _doing_ here?"

Missy gave him a sheepish look, twirling her dishtowel toga nervously in her miniscule hands. "Well, sir, Missy was feeling very lonely, now that sir has gone back to school, and Master James has gone with him…"

"Oh…" Harry winced. What was he supposed to say to that? "Well, we've missed you too, Missy…"

Squealing in joy, Missy jumped at him and grabbed his knees in a delighted hug. It was only when she pulled back and started eyeing his hair with a somewhat menacing look that Harry quickly jumped backwards. "Er… Missy… _please_ tell me that you didn't bring your scissors…"

Grinning evilly, the tiny elf withdrew a glittering pair of scissors from nowhere and began advancing on her terrified master. Dobby, sensing his friend's distress, aided Harry by giving him a wide smile. "Dobby is so happy to see Harry Potter again! Dobby can see that sir and Missy are wanting time alone, so Dobby is going back to the kitchens! Good bye, Harry Potter!"

Watching in horror as his only salvation disappeared with a crack, Harry suddenly found himself tied to a chair in much the same manner his father had been over the summer, with Missy hovering by his shoulder, cackling gleefully. He momentarily considered screaming for help and attempting to escape, but he realized that the best way to survive this encounter intact was to simply let the psychotic house elf cut his hair without protest. _It's not like she's going to hurt me or anything, _he assured himself, _she does serve me, after all. She's not allowed to hurt me._

Then he yelped in shock as Missy accidentally jabbed him with her scissors. Wincing in pain, Harry slumped down in his rather uncomfortable chair and waited anxiously for the ordeal to be over.

After a good half hour of agony, Missy returned the scissors to her pocket, unbound her prisoner, handed him a mirror, and disappeared with a crack. Harry shakily held the mirror up to his face, and was relieved to see that, despite her insanity, the elf was still a decent hairdresser, and had revived the short, spiky, streaky look she'd given him over the summer. Which was rather a good thing, in Harry's opinion, as his hair really _had_ been getting scruffy.

He then set to work removing the decorations and vanishing the Harry-tree, and had just finished when members of the DA began arriving, who he happily joined in their jokes and laughter, everyone feeling very good about life in general, thanks to the approaching holiday season. When the last members finally straggled in, Harry gestured for silence, and took the stage with his usual flair.

That is to say, he tripped and went sprawling into the Weasley twins, who, judging by their delighted expressions, were the ones who made him trip in the first place. Glowering at the duo, who grinned and raised their wands in mocking salutes, Harry pulled himself to his feet and continued his somewhat less-than-impressive journey to the front of the room.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Harry announced, and all conversation came to a halt as their leader began his speech. "Welcome to the last Defence Association meeting of this term!"

The cheers nearly deafened him.

"In these past few months you have learned many things, things that will help you in every area of life! Already, the averages in Transfiguration and Charms have risen twelve percent! Not to mention you will undoubtedly pass your OWLs with flying colours!

"Even more importantly," he continued seriously, "you now have the skills so that, should you ever meet up with a real, live Death Eater, you will be able to survive and escape to safety, something you would not have been capable of a mere month before."

.:Again with the cheering:. Decimare grumbled as the room rang with applause. .:You'd think they'd be more… reserved:.

'We can't all be boring old stiffs,' Harry replied cheerfully.

"After the Christmas break, we will start learning the Patronus charm," he continued. "This will be very difficult, and I expect most of you will have a difficult time of it, but I promise you will succeed!"

Fred and George began a rendition of 'We are the Champions', but were quickly silenced by Hermione's glare. Stifling a laugh, Harry hurried to conclude his speech.

"So today we're just going to go over what we've learned, and make sure all the spells we've learned are as perfect as possible. Er… split up into partners, then, and let's get started with the Expelliarmus charm!"

As everyone scattered off in pairs, Harry found himself accosted by Ginny, who seemed very displeased about something. Leaning forward, he asked her quietly what was wrong, and she replied angrily: "It's that Cho Chang. She's been lurking around lately, giving you goo-goo eyes. I don't like it one bit!"

Having been occupied with Ginny for the past month, Harry had barely even noticed the Chinese beauty still existed, and thus was very shocked to hear his girlfriend's words. _Typical, _he thought glumly. _When I actually fancy the girl, she can't give me the time of day, but now that I've got a girlfriend, Cho suddenly realizes she's fancied me all along. Just bloody great._

"Don't worry," he told the fuming red-head with a lopsided grin. "I won't let her seduce me while you aren't looking."

Ginny smiled and kissed him on the cheek. "Good. Because if you did, I'd have to dump you, and then kill her, and that wouldn't be very pleasant for anybody involved." As the slender girl sashayed off to find her partner, Harry smiled uncertainly, not entirely sure whether or not she'd been joking about the murder thing. That was what he liked about Ginny; she kept him on his toes.

Now feeling as if both Cho and Ginny were watching his every move, Harry quickly made his way over to Tristan and Luna, eager for something to get his mind off his girl troubles. Sure enough, they didn't disappoint, because as soon as Harry arrived, he found himself covered in glowing neon spatulas.

"Okay, what on _earth _is going on here?" he demanded of the duo, who beamed happily at him.

"Tristan was teaching me how to conjure things," Luna explained. "I'd heard the Gloornacks – those are a subspecies of the Crumple Horned Snorkack – can conjure household cooking instruments at will, so I was hoping he could teach me how they did it."

"Evidently he succeeded," Harry replied wryly, flicking his wand to vanish the spatulas from his person. "I don't suppose Tristan has anything intelligible to say on the matter?"

"Cashews do not hug the octopus when the clouds turn red," Tristan told him sternly. Harry was once again seized with the feeling that the strange boy really _was _trying to tell him something, but he, Harry, just wasn't interpreting correctly.

.:Cashews are nuts:. Decimare said helpfully. .:Hug the octopus… hmm… I cannot interpret this thing's speech. We must conclude that he is mentally unsound:.

Then a thought struck Harry. "Tristan, you remember that message you gave me a couple of days ago?"

"Orange," he agreed.

"I found the person who sent it," he said carefully, not wanting to give anything away to Luna, who was watching them with rapt fascination. "And he said that you were… hostile when you first met him. I don't suppose you could tell me why?"

He hadn't been expecting a proper answer, and Tristan was never one to disappoint.

"Lobsters and fairies go round and round, but never ever touch the ground," the Hufflepuff replied in a sing-song voice, then added: "Until a state of realization and understanding is reached."

Taken aback, Harry studied the smiling boy furiously, but all he got was an innocent look and a raised eyebrow from Luna. Acting on a hunch, he asked Luna seriously: "Do _you _understand what he's saying?"

"He, she, it…" she said dreamily. "I am he as you are he as you are me…"

"Thanks, Luna," he sighed. "Just… keep practicing, alright? And no more spatulas."

Shaking his head, Harry turned away from the psychotic duo and went back to surveying the room. He only hoped he could get some straight answers from the tiny Hufflepuff soon, or else he would not be held responsible for his actions.

At nine o'clock Harry was forced to call the meeting to an end, and waited patiently for the cheery students to make their way out of the Room of Requirement. One of the annoying parts of being the leader of the DA was that Harry was forced to hang around until everyone had gone, so he could make sure the room was safely locked up in case someone like Umbridge or Malfoy was snooping around. Realizing that everyone had gone, Harry moved to do the same, but was startled when he heard someone clear their throat behind him. A very feminine someone…

Expecting to be greeted with the sight of his gorgeous girlfriend, when Harry turned around he was shocked to see Cho Chang standing before him, fidgeting nervously as her long, dark hair glinted in the candlelight. Unsure what she wanted with him, Harry made his way around her to settle against one of the antique bookcases, watching her cautiously the whole time. Ginny's warnings about the Asian beauty were not lost on him. And he wasn't particularly interested in getting dumped, or having Cho killed, anytime soon.

"Er… what's up?" he said lamely, trying and failing to appear in control of the situation.

.:Very smooth, Master:. Decimare hissed mockingly. .:She should be falling head-over-heels for you in no time:.

'I don't want her to fall for me, I want her to leave me alone!' Harry snarled mentally. 'I'm dating Ginny, remember?'

Cho was giving him a doe-eyed expression, looking incredibly attractive in her form-fitting, low-cut crimson robes. Feeling more than a little uncomfortable, Harry made to act as non-chalantly as possible, and proceeded to do so by elbowing the bookcase accidentally and knocking a heavy tome onto his foot. Yelping, Harry sank to the floor with a groan that was born more of embarrassment than pain, and he couldn't help but shiver as Cho anxiously hurried over to him and grabbed his hand. Even after they had determined no harm had come from his mishap, Harry couldn't bring himself to remove his hand from her grasp.

Inside his mind, Decimare was making an incredibly disgusted noise. .:So much for being the brave, noble hero. You can't even stay loyal to one woman:.

'Shut up,' Harry hissed, jerking his hand away from Cho, who gave him a startled, somewhat hurt, look. 'I promised Ginny I wouldn't let Cho seduce me, and I won't!'

.:Whatever you say:. the snake sighed. .:I'll be busy imagining myself actually possessing a half-way intelligent Master, if you need me:.

Ignoring the serpent's sarcasm, Harry hastily got to his feet, gaining valuable inches of space between the two teenagers, one of whom was looking more and more desirable to Harry's hormone-driven mind by the minute.

"I've been watching you," Cho said softly, batting her dark eyelashes seductively.

"Really?" Harry stammered, backing up slightly, only to find himself flat up against the bookcase once more. "I haven't noticed."

Undeterred, Cho stepped forward, forcing Harry to press further into the bookshelf to avoid coming into bodily contact with her. That would only lead to trouble, and Harry couldn't afford to be in any trouble where Ginny was concerned. Especially after her threat earlier that evening.

"That's because you've been busy with that Weasley girl," Cho said contemptuously. Harry frowned.

"That's my _girlfriend _you're talking about, Cho," he rebuked.

"Yes, she is," Cho agreed, moving even closer, and this time Harry couldn't back up any further, and was unable to stop the girl from pressing up against him – short of shoving her away or hexing her, of course. "Don't you ever get… bored, though?"

"Bored?" Harry squeaked, feeling very uneasy about the whole situation. His sudden desire to grab Cho and kiss her senseless wasn't helping, either. _Stupid hormones_, he thought viciously.

"You know," she continued smoothly, "don't you ever wish you could be with someone who was more… experienced?"

"Uh… no," Harry stuttered, now _extremely _uneasy. "Look, Cho, I… Ginny… that is…"

Now Cho had glanced up, giving Harry an enticing view of her smooth, swan-like neck. "Look," she said quietly. "Mistletoe."

Harry gulped, and tried and failed to disappear into the bookshelf. "Now, Cho, you can't just-"

Her lips silenced _that _thought before Harry could even properly formulate it. Relaxing into the kiss, Harry briefly found himself swept away by the sensation, until he realized what exactly was happening, and just how _wrong_ his actions were.

Shoving her away, he snarled, "What do you think you're _doing_? I told you, I'm seeing Ginny!"

Cho frowned. "I don't see what the problem is, Harry. It's not like she's here right now. But _we _are…" she trailed off seductively, but this time Harry had steeled himself, and didn't give in like he had before.

"I don't think so," he snapped. "Cho, I get that you're hurting over Cedric and looking for someone to take the pain away, but I'm not the guy for you. You'll just have to find someone else."

He nearly yelped as Decimare suddenly uncoiled from around his finger and sank his teeth deeply into Harry's palm. 'Ow!' he protested mentally.

.:Who are you, and what have you done with my Master:. Decimare demanded. .:There is no way _my _Master could possibly be so insightful and… well, intelligent:.

'Oh, lay off, Decimare,' Harry glowered sullenly. 'I'm allowed to be clever once in a while. Besides, it _was _pretty clear why Cho suddenly turned her sights on me. Her boyfriend died, and I was the only one who was there to see it… It's only natural she turn to me for comfort.'

Decimare rolled his tiny obsidian eyes. .:Now I _know _you're possessed:.

Shaking his head, Harry returned to Cho, who was regarding him with a teary expression. It then occurred to him that he'd perhaps been a _tad _short with her. "Cho, look, I'm sorry…"

The Ravenclaw witch raised a slender hand in protest, startling Harry into silence. "Don't. You're right, of course." She laughed sadly. "I've been a complete wreck since Cedric died. I had no right to come on to you like that. Let's just… pretend it never happened, alright?"

Harry eyed her appraisingly, and it appeared, to all intents and purposes, that she was genuine in her apology. In fact, she looked rather embarrassed about the whole situation. "Forget about it," he said bracingly. "Temporary insanity due to raging hormones. We were never here, and this never happened."

She gave him a relieved smile. "Thanks, Harry. You… you're a good guy. I just wish I'd realized that before Ginny Weasley snatched you up."

Harry flushed and scratched his head awkwardly. "Yeah, well…"

Cho laughed. "I'm glad we had this… well, not much of a talk, to be honest. This encounter, then. I think you've helped me sort out my priorities a little. Not to mention my feelings. Thanks."

Grinning, Harry bobbed his head in acknowledgment and gestured towards the exit. "Shall we?" Cho gave him a last, bashful smile and all but ran out of the door, leaving Harry to finish locking up the room.

.:Well, that was… interesting:. Decimare commented.

'Stranger things have happened,' Harry countered. 'Although I'd have to say that was in the top ten.'

_And just when things were getting back to normal, too…_

To be continued…

A/N: Ta da! Chapter 34! I couldn't help but stick Tristan in this scene – call me crazy, but I adore that insane little darling. Incidentally, this chapter is dedicated to my brother Jesse, because he gave me chocolate. Yes, I'm shallow. No, I don't really care. lol Review:-)


	35. The Pensive Goose

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except the plot, and, of course, Tristan.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Thirty Five: The Pensive Goose

When Harry returned to his dormitory several hours past curfew, the only thing on his mind was sleep. Thus he spent only a few seconds staring off into space before his eyelids began drooping, and within the minute he had drifted off into the realm of dreams.

He was in what appeared to be a long, dark, deserted corridor, like the ones he used to wander around in during his sleep (although he hadn't dreamt of the corridors in weeks). The return to the familiar setting was enough to put Harry on edge, and it was thus that his heightened senses noted the presence of another person in the corridor, although he couldn't for the life of him figure out where this elusive person was. The only thing other than him and the stone walls was the large black door that he could never quite seem to reach, and after a moment of reflection, Harry realized the telltale sounds of breathing were coming from that door. Or, at least, somewhere very close to that ominous portal.

_Well then_, Harry thought happily, _at least now I know this isn't some really strange dream. Why would I dream of an invisible person? This _must _be one of those false visions Decimare warned me about. _He reflected on this point momentarily. _Then that means Voldemort is sending it to me, which means it probably isn't true. But he's supposed to be doing this to throw me off balance. What's so upsetting about a corridor with some invisible person?_

As he felt his body slithering toward the door, Harry suddenly realized that he was, in fact, slithering. _This is strange_, drifted through his mind. He glanced down through reptilian eyes and only took a moment to realize he was in a snake's body… and considering this vision was sent by Voldemort, it was most likely Nagini's.

_Kill, maim, feed! _Harry felt the words in his mind, but for some reason they didn't impact him very much. Remembering Decimare's speech on partially blocking the Dark Lord's access to his mind, Harry figured that, were he _not _being protected by a mystical snake-sword, he probably would have been overwhelmed and immediately gone on a killing spree. _Not that I _could _go on a killing spree_, he thought. _It's not like I have any control over this body. _

Nearing closer and closer to the invisible person, Harry felt his trepidation grow as Nagini's body reared back to strike with her deadly fangs. Just as Harry was about to sink his teeth into the person's foot, which had slipped out a bit from the invisibility cloak, the snake jerked back in shock as two people appeared with a crack right in front of him.

"Slow night, eh, Arthur?" James Potter said companionably, and the invisible man pulled back his cloak to reveal the tired face of the Weasley patriarch.

"Stealth was never one of your strong suits, was it?" he asked rhetorically. Behind James, Sirius gave him a mock-offended look.

"You wound us to the core," he sniffled. "Come on, relax a minute and take a break."

"We brought muffins!" James exclaimed brightly, holding up a pink basket full to the brim with fluffy chocolate chip muffins in happy yellow smiley-face wrappers.

Harry's view went black as the vision ended abruptly. Jerking upright in bed, Harry took a minute to regain his composition, before pulling the serpentine ring onto his finger and hissing furiously, 'What on _earth _was that about?'

He could feel Decimare probing around his memories to view the vision for itself, and when it did, the snake actually began laughing. As in, full, hearty chuckles that resounded in Harry's mind as its tiny body writhed in amusement around Harry's finger.

'_What?_'

Decimare sobered up enough to explain. .:The Dark Lord sent you that vision. You were, in essence, trapped in the snake's body, and would have felt all its emotions, had I not been shielding your mind. Then your father and godfather showed up, which he obviously didn't plan on occurring, and…:.

'Wait a minute!' Harry interrupted. 'This was a false vision created by Voldemort, right? So if he created it, how could James and Sirius appear in it?'

.:Because this wasn't a false vision:. Decimare hissed. .:As far as I can tell, the Dark Lord intended to bolster your trust in the visions by showing you a scene that actually came to pass – in this case, Arthur Weasley being attacked by Nagini:.

As soon as Harry's mind processed these words, he burst out laughing. 'You're saying that Voldemort sent me, in Nagini's body, to kill Mr. Weasley, and Sirius and James showed up out of nowhere? And he was trying to _scare _me with that?'

.:I imagine that is why he cancelled the vision:. Decimare agreed. .:Once your father started going on about muffins, the sombre mood was somewhat… well, destroyed:.

Harry shook his head incredulously. 'Well, there goes any credibility Voldemort ever had. Sending me a death-muffin vision. That's just sad.'

.:After that abysmal failure, the Dark Lord is unlikely to make another assassination attempt for some time:. Decimare noted. .:Unless it encourages him, in which case it would be prudent to run and hide:.

'Did you just make a joke?' Harry grinned. 'Well, hopefully Voldemort'll be so annoyed with his failure that he'll lay low for a while. I'm going to sleep now. Good night.'

While Harry slumbered peacefully in his high tower, he was blissfully unaware of the events going on in the rest of Hogwarts – namely, the antics of the deadly duo Padfoot and Prongs. The pair were decked out in full SWAT-team regalia, and were crouched in a seldom-used passageway tucked away behind the Arithmancy classroom, watching the hands on James's pocket watch slowly tick away.

Although it was a strange scene to be sure, events such as these were common when the Marauders were involved. The only difference between this situation and others in the past was that this time, Sirius had a large goose sitting in his lap, preening its feathers as it honked a soft tune to itself. If geese were capable of looking thoughtful, then this one was.

"Quiet, Gunther," Sirius whispered to the goose. "This is supposed to be a covert operation. Too much noise and one of those idiot prefects will hear us."

Gunther the goose honked derisively and returned quietly to its preening.

"Where _is _he?" James scowled, leaning against the stone wall as he twirled his wand idly. "He was supposed to be here a _minute _ago."

"Afraid we're gonna get caught, ickle Prongsie?" Sirius taunted. "Remember, we're Hogwarts Security. If we _are _caught, we can pass our actions off as part of our job."

"Operation Sentinel was bad enough," James sulked. "But Operation Foefire? If the Headmaster ever finds out…"

"He'll thank us profusely, because Foefire will have just saved his ungrateful life," Sirius returned. "_Where _is Franz? There's no point holding his goose hostage if he's not even going to show up and reclaim him. And those black market magical sub-machine guns aren't going to deliver themselves, you know."

"You haff taken Gunther! You vill die for your crimes!" Franz the black market dealer hissed as he appeared dramatically out of the shadows.

"About time," James frowned. "You have the guns?"

"Da," Franz agreed.

"Isn't that Russian?" Sirius asked Gunther in confusion. "I thought he was _German_."

"Gunther!" Franz snapped. "To me!"

As soon as the errant goose was safely in the burly German/Russian's arms, Franz swished his wand, and a huge wooden crate appeared before Sirius and James. "Sub-machine guns," Franz explained. "You haff money?"

Sirius chucked him a sack of galleons, and Franz saluted him, before turning and disappearing into the shadows with his beloved goose. As Sirius began opening up the crate, James remarked idly, "You know, there was no real reason for goose-napping Gunther. It's not like Franz wouldn't hold up his end of the bargain."

"Yeah, but Gunther needed a break," Sirius defended. "How would you like listening to all that nonsense all day?"

"That nonsense was called _German_, Sirius," James sighed. "One day I'm going to force you to travel the world, just so you can stop being so narrow-minded."

"They're all here," Sirius announced, and James hurried over to see rows upon rows of glittering sub-machine guns, arranged neatly in the massive crate, cushioned with packing foam and what looked like marshmallows.

"Operation Foefire can now commence," James said happily. "Although it occurs to me… Sentinel was a much less descriptive name than Foefire. We might as well have called it Operation Blow Up Any Death Eaters Who Enter Hogwarts With Sub-Machine Guns."

"I think it's perfectly legitimate," Sirius huffed. "Besides, it was a better name than Operation Boom."

"I liked Operation Boom," James sulked.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Then we'll use the name for something else, alright? Come on, let's get this crate back to Sentinel so we can commence installation."

"Commence installation," James mimicked. "You sound like Moody."

"What can I say? Mentors rub off on their favourite students."

"Well, I supp… wait a minute! Favourite? You weren't his…"

Sirius cackled and sprinted off down the corridor.

James shook his head. "Git."

Winter holidays started on a more… unusual note than normal. That is to say, Harry and the Weasleys, dragging their trunks down the worn stone steps into the Entrance Hall, discovered that the Christmas decorations adorning the hall had all vanished. Instead, every surface had been turned a brilliant shade of magenta, and images of that strange Ravenclaw girl Luna Lovegood adorned every wall, table, and chair.

Not entirely sure what to make of this, Harry and the Weasleys scanned the hall for any sign of who had done such a massive, incredibly strange prank.

"Nice, isn't it?" Luna Lovegood commented airily as she strolled in from the right, gazing up at the many photographs of her that lined the walls. "A bit much, I thought, but Tristan said I was worth it."

Ron gave the Ravenclaw an extremely disturbed look. "Are you telling me this is… what? Tristan's attempt to woo you, or something?"

"Well, I told him that it would never work between us, but he insisted," Luna shrugged. "He was originally going to capture me a Korslack with his bare hands, but he didn't have time to brush his hair this morning, so I let him do this instead." She gestured at the transformed Entrance Hall.

"TRISTAN!" Harry bellowed.

Tristan's tousled brown head poked out from underneath one of the magenta tables, and the rest of his tiny body quickly followed. "Yes, Miss Ostrich?"

Harry shook off the title. "Put things back," he ordered. "The teachers will be up soon, and they won't be pleased to see what you did here."

"They worked hard on the decorations of the Entrance Hall," Hermione added sternly. "You shouldn't have changed things like this. How would you like if someone went into your room and rearranged all your belongings and painted them magenta for no reason?"

"That would rock!" the twins chorused. Hermione levelled a devastating glare at the pair, and they made a hasty departure.

"The fox cannot fly in the coral wreaths!" Tristan protested.

"He couldn't figure out how else to express his feelings," Luna translated.

"What feelings would those be?" Ginny prompted, having the sense to get to the bottom of the problem without all that tedious mucking around and trying to get a straight answer out of the Monkey King and his batty blonde friend.

"The sun is like an avocado, gooey and purple," Tristan waxed poetic, placing a hand dramatically to his tiny chest.

"Does that mean he fancies you?" Harry demanded of Luna.

"Of course; weren't you listening to a thing he just said?" Luna asked, sounding a tad impatient.

Harry held up his hands defensively. "I just can't understand him like you can. So you made him show his devotion by doing this?"

"That doesn't make any sense!" Luna scoffed. "I told him no, we'd never have a romantic relationship, so he charmed the hall in my likeness in a fit of grief and acceptance."

"And that _does _make sense?" Ginny asked incredulously.

"Look, just…" Harry sighed and trailed off, removing his glasses and polishing them on his shirt. "Tristan, do what I say for _once _and change everything back, alright? And Luna, next time you dump him, or reject him or whatever, do it in a smaller, less frequented room, alright?"

Tristan shrugged, gave his customary response of "Orange," and with a flick of his wand, returned the hall to its original state, before turning and running from the room, sobbing hysterically, Luna on his heels.

Hermione gave the departing pair a strange look. "Is it me, or did I just see a first year boy _vanish _the entire contents of a room?"

Harry shrugged. "When it comes to Tristan, Hermione, don't even try to understand. Believe me, I've tried, and I had no luck whatsoever."

"Yeah, but Hermione's a hell of a lot smarter than you, so maybe she'll have better luck." Harry glared viciously at his girlfriend, who gave him an impish grin. "What? It's _true_."

"You don't have to rub it in," Harry muttered.

"You just let me in the same room as Tristan for five minutes, and I'll have him figured out," Hermione promised.

"Maybe the key to Tristan isn't logic, but a lack of," Ron put forward slowly. "Look at Luna – she's the only person who seems to understand a word he says, and she's not exactly the sanest person on the planet."

"We should get the twins to talk to him," Harry snorted. "He'd be singing like a lark in no time." He paused when his friends gave him intrigued looks.

"Not a bad idea," Hermione declared. "It may even work! We'll have to talk to the twins over the break." She glanced at Harry. "Well, _we'll _talk to the twins, since you'll be busy with your dad and Sirius at the Potter Manor."

Harry's eyes glinted eagerly at the thought. A whole two weeks with just his father and godfather for company. Sirius had shown him their itinerary for the holiday – if they didn't collapse from exhaustion by day three, Harry would eat his sock. _Although considering it's one of those cherry flavoured ones… getting off track, Harry!_ He shook his head to return to the present conversation.

"… so we'll see you Christmas day," Ginny was concluding. "And you'd _better _have a good gift for me, Harry, or I'm dumping you and getting a new boyfriend."

"Like you even _could_," Harry scoffed.

"Honey, I could find myself a new boyfriend before you could even _blink_," Ginny laughed.

.:She's not wrong:. Decimare noted. Harry gave the snake spirit a mental scowl.

'Shut up,' he groused.

.:Suit yourself:. the serpent hissed and fell quiet. Harry jerked back to reality when he realized Hermione was eyeing him strangely.

"You've sure been spacing out a lot this year, Harry."

Beside the bushy-haired brunette, Ginny glanced quickly at Ron, who was inspecting the Hall for any remaining traces of Tristan's decorations, and mouthed: _Decimare?_

Harry gave a heavy sigh and nodded. Then, to Hermione: "I don't know what you're talking about. I've always spaced out before."

Hermione was giving him that There's-something-you're-not-telling-me look, but Harry was determined to enjoy himself, and didn't want to worry about exactly how many secrets he was keeping from his best friends. "Drop it, Mione," Ginny said unexpectedly, and as Hermione's mouth shut reluctantly, Harry gave his girlfriend a grateful smile.

Obviously put out, Hermione wandered off to join Ron, giving Harry the opportunity to have some alone-time with Ginny, as the twins still hadn't returned from their impromptu departure. Harry faced his girlfriend awkwardly, not entirely sure what he should say in such a situation. He finally settled on a hesitant "I'll miss you over the Holidays", and waited anxiously for Ginny's answer. She rolled her eyes.

"Honestly, Harry, we'll be apart… what? A week?" Harry winced. _Wrong words, then. Pretend it was all a joke, maybe?_

"You're right," he laughed. "Just trying to… uh…" The joke wouldn't come, leaving Harry floundering awkwardly. Ginny rolled her eyes again and hugged Harry fiercely.

"I keep forgetting how socially inept you are," she grinned. "I guess 'I'll miss you' is good enough." Pressing a kiss to his lips, Ginny ruffled his messy hair and moved to join Ron and Hermione, who had collected their trunks and were now arguing over whether it was anti-feminist to hold a door open for a lady and carry her luggage. Harry stared after the scarlet-haired girl in confusion, unsure if he'd won or lost that conversation.

.:You seem to be thinking that a lot lately:. Decimare commented. .:You must stop questioning yourself and stand firm against confusion and uncertainty. Besides, questioning your every foolish move is _my _job:.

Harry found an odd comfort in the snake's words. 'Right,' he thought determinedly. 'Stand firm. I _did _win that conversation, and was perfectly right in telling her I'd miss her!'

Decimare rolled its tiny obsidian eyes. .:As it happens, you are _completely _wrong, Master, but well done for being so assertive. I was quite moved:.

'If you don't quit with the sarcasm, I'm going to chuck you off the Astronomy tower,' Harry threatened as he heaved his trunk up and trekked off after his departing friends.

.:Or you might end up pushing yourself off by accident:. Decimare hissed brightly.

'That's ridiculous!' Harry snapped. 'Why would I do that?'

.:I'm just saying:.

Decimare's voice disappeared from Harry's mind, and he cursed vehemently under his breath.

"I'm going to _kill _that bloody snake!"

The trip back to London was more or less uneventful, as Malfoy was nowhere to be seen, Tristan and Luna had wedged themselves in the engine room and fallen asleep, and the twins were up at the front with James and Sirius discussing something or other. Actually, it was a miracle that nothing happened, so Harry was thanking his lucky stars as the train pulled into Platform 9 3/4 unharmed.

Ginny, despite her statement before about missing someone over the holidays being a waste of emotion, was close to tears as she hugged Harry tightly, prompting Hermione to sigh and Ron to flush an interesting shade of red seeing his baby sister pressed up against his best friend. It didn't help that Hermione was giving him pointed looks that Ron couldn't for the life of him understand. _Maybe she wants Harry to hug her? _he wondered as Hermione inched closer to him.

Exasperated, Hermione pulled the befuddled redhead into a hug which left him flushed and speechless. Rather pleased with herself, Hermione bid her friends goodbye and left with her parents, and was followed shortly by the Weasleys, who were only able to leave after tearing their sister away from Harry. This left Harry standing alone on the platform, casting about for his guardians, yet turning up with nothing except random passer-by's who either ignored him completely, or went absolutely crazy and all but smothered him in their attempts to acquire his autograph.

After a while, Harry relocated to the Muggle section of the station, giving himself a good view of the parking lot, and both the Muggle and magical parts of the building. Twenty three games of I-spy with Decimare later, James and Sirius still hadn't appeared.

"It's been almost an hour!" Harry finally grumbled to himself, fed up with waiting. Not that he was impatient, it was just that… come on! He _knew _his guardians were on that train right along with him! 'Did they forget about me?' he wondered with his typical misplaced insecurity.

.:Don't be insecure:. Decimare snapped. .:It's getting just a little pathetic. They love you, as hard to imagine as that concept is, and they _will _come. Probably bearing loads of gifts and driving something ridiculous like a… Ferrari convertible:.

'That _is_ ridiculous,' Harry said reproachfully. 'If you're going to give examples, Decimare, at least make them plausible.'

.:And your observation skills are inspirational as always:. Decimare hissed sarcastically.

'Hey, thanks! Wait a minute…' Sure enough, pulling up in the most gorgeous red Ferrari convertible imaginable were Harry's beloved guardians, decked from head to toe in bright blue dragon skin, looking absolutely ridiculous.

.:Is it just me, or do their clothing and that car clash horribly:. the snake hissed absently.

'It's not just you,' Harry thought in awe. 'They're out of their minds! Whatever happened to keeping a low profile?' Heaving his trunk over his shoulder, Harry hurried to the doors and made his way quickly over to his guardians, who were lounging against the car looking very cool and composed. At least Harry assumed they did, if the whistles and admiring looks of the passing ladies were any indication.

"Have you two ever heard of punctuality?" Harry demanded as James grabbed his trunk and stashed it in the trunk.

"Punctuality," Sirius scoffed. "Like _that's _a word."

"Let's go," James said cheerfully before Harry could say anything else. Sighing, Harry made to get into the backseat, but was blocked by Sirius, who cheerfully plopped down in his intended seat. Slightly confused, Harry turned to the passenger seat, and found that James was already in it, giving him a pleased grin.

"Okay… what's going on?"

"How old are you now, son?" James asked conversationally, patting the driver's seat invitingly. Unsure what was going on, Harry tentatively took the proffered seat and gave his guardians a suspicious look.

"Fifteen, as you know very well. And before you even think it, the driving age here is _sixteen_."

James rolled his eyes. "Have we taught you nothing? Rules are for losers!"

Harry sighed. "I can't talk you out of this, can I?"

"Nope!" Sirius agreed cheerfully. "Time to give in to peer pressure, Harry! Turn the key, and press the gas! Let's roll!"

.:Do it:. Decimare ordered.

Harry, feeling incredibly overwhelmed, turned the key and pressed the gas.

.:Giving into peer pressure. Well done:. Decimare sighed.

'You told me to!'

.:I'm a possessed sword named _Decimare _forged by Salazar Slytherin! You should always take _everything _I say with a grain of salt:. it hissed reproachfully. .:Like now, for instance, when you really should have put the car in reverse, not in drive:.

Sure enough, they rolled forward and hit the curb with a thud. Sirius and James hooted happily. "Try reverse next time," James suggested.

"A perfect role model you are _not_," Harry muttered.

"I heard that."

Getting the car into the correct gear, Harry backed out of the parking stall without too much difficulty, and within minutes was speeding down the street, attracting admiring glances from both genders as he drove along in his shiny new Ferrari.

"Er… this isn't a rental, is it?" Harry asked tentatively as he pulled up to a red light. Sirius snorted.

"You honestly think we'd put a rental car in your inexperienced hands? This car's all yours, kid. Try not to damage it."

"Speaking of which, we need to go left," James piped up. "Turn here."

Harry turned. Then slammed on the brakes as he was nearly flattened by an oncoming truck.

"Are you insane?" he bellowed at his father. "It's a red light!"

"Yes, and _red _means _go_," James replied as if Harry were dimwitted.

Harry quickly stepped on the gas and hightailed it out of there before he was pulled over for reckless driving. Once they reached the country road that led to the Potter Manor, Harry's anger had mostly dissipated, and he asked somewhat wearily, "Did you happen to hear a lot of honking while you were driving to the train station, by any chance?"

Sirius frowned. "Now that you mention it, yes. Drivers these days."

The convertible turned smoothly up the long driveway, and within minutes came in sight of Potter Manor, looking just as splendid in the winter as it did in the summer. Its snow-covered roof actually gave it a rather rustic look, which Harry found quite appealing. Once they'd pulled up to the front door and gotten out, Missy popped into appearance and after an exuberant greeting, disappeared, somehow taking the car with her.

"So, Harry," James grinned, turning to his son, who was still a tad miffed over the whole event. "Have we learned anything today?"

"That you two are complete gits?" Harry grumbled.

"Besides that," Sirius prompted.

Sighing, Harry recited the words Aberforth Dumbledore repeated to him at every available opportunity: "Don't trust anyone, even my own father or godfather. In this life, everyone is out to get me, and anyone could be a Death Eater in disguise. I must show constant vigilance and be aware that at any time my friends could turn on me and betray me to the Dark Lord, or just kill me in cold blood because they are insensitive gits."

James and Sirius exchanged impressed glances. "Well, yeah," James agreed. "Since when did your Wisdom score increase? Did you level up when I wasn't looking?"

Harry gave him a strange look. "What?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "D&D. Dungeons and Dragons. An RPG we used to play… never mind."

"I won't," Harry promised. "If we're all done trying to teach Harry a valuable life lesson by attempting to get him flattened by a truck and arrested by the cops, can we go inside now? It's freezing."

James laughed and ruffled his son's head. "Sure, kid. Maybe if we ask nicely, Missy'll whip us up some hot cocoa."

"Unlikely," Sirius grinned. "I'm pretty sure I heard her telling what's-his-name the cook that we're all supposed to be on a diet this Christmas. Something about not fitting into our dress robes for the New Years Gala."

"What New Years Gala?" Harry asked suspiciously.

James waved a hand dismissively. "Not important. We can worry about Galas later. Right now, we've got a whole vacation to waste!"

As Sirius and James cackled happily and rushed inside the mansion, Harry shook his head as he trailed after them. Just inside, a huge banner was hung from the high ceiling, spelling out "Welcome Back, Harry!" Harry grinned.

_It's good to be home._


	36. Metamorphisos

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except the plot, and, of course, Tristan.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Thirty Six: Metamorphisos

When Sirius had said "The Potter Manor is beautiful at Christmas – you'll be waking up in a winter wonderland", Harry had assumed the man was speaking metaphorically. After having known him for going-on three years, you'd think Harry'd know better by now.

Yawning widely as sunlight streamed through his frosty bedroom windows, Harry woke blearily on Christmas morning and fumbled around to locate his glasses. As he pushed himself upright, away from the warm clutches of his incredibly soft feather mattress, Harry realized that something wasn't right. Namely, he could not see floor nor furniture in his room, as the whole place was blanketed in a layer of gleaming white snow.

Hurriedly snatching up his wand, which was covered in several inches of snow, Harry attempted a vanishing charm on the white mass, but found there was something preventing his magic. "_Sirius_!"

_The _nerve _of that man_! Harry thought furiously, although he wasn't annoyed at the prank, so much that his godfather had managed to pull it off without Harry catching him. _He's going to regret this. My Firebolt is frozen solid!_

When Sirius's grinning face popped out from behind the doorframe a second later, he was struck full on with a disarming jinx, sending him sprawling to the carpeted floor. "Serves you right!" Harry crowed. "Do you realize how long this will take to clean up?"

Rolling his eyes, Sirius retrieved his wand and, with a lazy swish, vanished every speck of snow in the room. "You know," he drawled, "if you did your homework, you'd know how to get rid of the snow."

"Vanishing on that scale is seventh-year magic. Besides, you cast an anti-vanishing spell on it," Harry countered.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't just hear my dear godson accuse me of such an under-handed trick," Sirius trilled happily. "It's Christmas, kid, try to enjoy it!"

"I would if my idiot godfather didn't see fit to turn my room into the cave of the abominable snowman…" Harry muttered as he shoved his godfather from the room and slammed the heavy door shut. Hastily showering and dressing, Harry sprinted down the hall towards the main staircase, spirits lifting at the holiday music that drifted up from the entrance hall.

Feeling rather adventurous that day, Harry, rather than walking down the spiral staircase the way normal people were wont to do, instead hopped up on the banister. With a mighty shove, he was away, zooming around the looping handrail to land in a rather undignified heap on the hard marble floor.

"Ow…" Harry groaned, picking himself upright as Sirius and James hurried toward him, both grinning brightly. "I didn't see any presents by my bed this morning," Harry said suspiciously as his guardians ushered him through a door he'd never noticed before.

The room he entered rather reminded him of the living room set from the Nutcracker Ballet – a terribly dull performance his guardians had forced him to see two days before in the name of Christmas spirit. Dark-panelled walls made the large space seem cozy and intimate, and the sparkling gold chandeliers contrasted elegantly with the natural light of the thousands of candles that glimmered from the branches of a thirty-foot tall Christmas tree. Gaping at the monstrous tree, Harry almost missed the mountain of glittering boxes piled under its leafy boughs.

Harry tore through his gifts with reckless abandon, pausing every now and then to savour a particularly thoughtful gift. He was soon joined by Sirius and James, who had their own small piles of presents, mostly from old friends and colleagues, although they'd somehow found Harry's presents for them – which he'd hidden, no less! – and added them under the tree.

Several minutes of paper-tearing and ribbon-throwing later, Harry gazed around at this year's stash of presents, and couldn't be more pleased. Hermione had, of course, sent him a book (on Quidditch, to his delight!), while Ron had opted for a pair of Seeker's gloves, and note reminding his friend to write him soon. Sirius and James had combined forces and presented him with a gorgeous, burnished gold pocket watch that showed the time of day in twelve different countries, although the symbols magically circling the rim were indecipherable to Harry, and gave him a rather ominous feeling.

Ginny had sent him a handsome leather wallet that she had apparently made herself during DADA classes, rather than paying attention and actually learning something. "Yes, the classes were _that _dull," Ginny confirmed in her festive holiday card. But the best present by far was the one that Missy trundled out once all the gifts under the tree had been opened.

"Good morning, Harry," Remus Lupin said pleasantly, although he seemed rather frazzled from Missy's tiny hands jabbing at his knees to urge him into the room. "Happy Christmas."

"Remus!" Harry exclaimed in delight, running forward to shake the man's hand firmly. "Where've you _been_? You disappeared off the face of the planet!"

Remus gave his typically vague smile that indicated nothing and everything, and took a seat beside James, who handed him a cup of lukewarm tea. Quickly tapping his wand against the rim to heat it up, Remus said mildly, "Oh, you know, I've been here and there. Around. About."

Harry stared at him flatly. Sighing, Remus took a sip of tea and elaborated slightly. "I've been doing reconnaissance for the Headmaster. I won't say another word on the matter."

"Fine," Harry sulked. "Be that way." His marvellous imitation of an angsty, melodramatic teenager sent his guardians into hysterics. Rather put out, Harry gave Remus a pleading look for assistance.

"Now now, my friends, you shouldn't make light of Harry's woes," Remus scolded. "I am sure that my withholding relatively unimportant information from someone who shouldn't know about it in the first place is a perfectly reasonable excuse to have an unfounded temper tantrum."

Silence blanketed the room as Sirius, James, and Harry took a minute to work through what exactly their friend had just said. Harry wasn't quite sure whether Remus's helpful speech was a compliment or an insult, but judging by his guardians again convulsing in laughter, he figured on the latter.

With an additional member to the household for the day, James decided it was a perfect excuse to hold a two-on-two Quidditch match. This presented a slight problem as that, while the snow glittered very prettily in the morning sunlight, the temperature outside was Siberian in nature, meaning their brooms were as like to freeze as fly. Surprisingly, it was Harry to hit on the solution – cast warming spells on the brooms.

"Hermione taught me this incantation," Harry said proudly as Sirius set about casting the required charm on their broomsticks. "Or maybe it was for the bluebell flames spell." He winced. "Oops."

Remus quickly disarmed Sirius before the dark-haired men set their brooms on fire. "I shall take it from here, if that's alright" he said, although as he hefted the brooms in his arms and hurried from the room without a second glance, he hadn't given them much of a chance to object.

Thus followed a lovely afternoon of high-flying fun, culminating in a spectacular Snitch-capture by Harry, which had all four men cheering, along with an assortment of house-elves, two owls, and a creature Harry suspected was a slightly misshapen kelpie. The high-point of the match, though, had undoubtedly been Remus's first attempt at scoring with the Quaffle – something he hadn't done since the summer, five months before.

"Harry, go long!" Remus had bellowed as his partner rocketed across the field towards the goalposts, which Sirius was guarding with an intense expression on his chiselled features. Rearing back his long arm, Remus managed to get the ball all the way to Harry – quite a feat for an inexperienced player such as himself – narrowly avoiding James, whose outstretched arm missed the pass by less than an inch.

Hurrying up to Harry, who was having a marvellous time trying to fake Sirius out, Remus zoomed into the scoring area and called for the pass. Shrugging, Harry tossed the Quaffle to Remus, who, rearing back dramatically, flung the ball straight towards Sirius's unprotected left hoop.

It arched beautifully through the air, a veritable example of poetry in motion… until it bounced off the rim of the hoop, and rebounded directly into the startled werewolf's chest.

Then it was Remus arching beautifully through the air, a veritable example of poetry in motion, except this time he was plummeting suicidally towards the ground. James, ever the knight in shining armour, swooped in at the last minute and saved his friend from a splattery death. Once the near fatal experience had faded away, however, all agreed that the incident, while dangerous, had been very amusing – James, in fact, attempted to duplicate Remus's shot, and couldn't manage the spectacular rebound Remus had done.

All in all, a very satisfying Christmas indeed.

A week later, Harry found himself dreading the prospect of the upcoming New Year's Gala.

As it turned out, the New Years Gala was a massive celebration held every year at the Ministry of Magic, a fabulous event attended by only the Wizarding world's most wealthy and famous. James had only been to one, as he'd been busy with raising Harry and hiding from the Dark Lord; Remus was considered a filthy half-breed so hadn't attended any; and Sirius, of course, was a psychotic mass murderer, and thus had unsurprisingly not merited an invitation.

Harry was not officially allowed to attend such a prestigious event, as it was only for of-aged wizards, but James had pulled a few strings and gotten him an invite. He almost wished he'd been forbidden to go, though, when he learned Ginny, Ron, and Hermione could not attend – with no others of his age there, it promised to be a very boring evening.

"Don't be stupid," Sirius said genially when he heard his godson's worries. "The Weasley twins will be there – apparently they're on the Daily Prophet's 20 Wealthiest People in Britain list. I can't imagine how."

Harry remembered the twins detailing the elaborate mail-ordering system they'd set up, and grinned to himself. It was nice to see the twins profiting from such harshly earned winnings. "They're always worth a laugh," he conceded. "I'll go."

"You realize you'd have to attend even if you didn't want to, right?" Sirius smirked. "As the Potter heir, it's kind of your duty."

Harry sighed. "Like I didn't have enough responsibilities already."

Sirius regarded him peculiarly. "Aside from Quidditch and Animagus training, what else have you got going on? Those alone shouldn't take up _that _much of your time."

"Ha ha. Funny you should ask. Uh… I need to go." Beating a hasty retreat from the room, Harry refrained from thumping his head against the wall for making up such a ludicrous excuse. "He probably knows everything, and is just having fun with me," he grumbled glumly to himself. "I still can't figure out how they found me in Hogsmeade that night…"

Harry's fears for Peter's safety, and the safety of Merlin's shield, had been somewhat alleviated two days ago when Hedwig had returned with an unmarked package. The envelope's wax seal featured a strange pattern that Harry had only ever seen on the shield, confirming it was indeed Peter sending the missive. The short letter inside had been something along the lines of:

"Hello Harry. Am safely hidden. Cannot disclose location. The Dark Lord is fast on my trail. I will continue moving to avoid capture. Will return to England as soon as possible. Wormtail."

_Who'd have thought Peter was such a great secret agent? He's got the lingo down perfectly. _Smirking to himself as he hurried down the hallway to the safety of his room, Harry slammed the door shut and locked it to prevent his suspicious godfather from following. _Bad enough to have him finding out I've been playing with pointy objects for over five months, _Harry thought. _If he finds out I stole Decimare from the Potter vault, I'll probably be disowned. _

Casting a complicated locking charm on the door for extra security, Harry retreated to the center of his immense chambers. During an impromptu game of tag about the extensive manor on Boxing Day, Remus had hidden with Harry in the kitchens, and cast the locking charm on the door to prevent the tagger – James – from entering. Harry had been fascinated, and received a lesson on the spot.

With a flick of his holly wand, all the dirty clothes that had accumulated in smelly heaps flew to the corners of the room, leaving a clear space to practice his sword fighting. Previously he'd been training against his conjured shadow companion in the secret room his guardians showed him over the summer – the one they'd used to brew the Animagus potion – but after nearly being caught yesterday, Harry decided to do some creative redecorating. While the room's furniture arrangement had provided enough space over the summer for blade training, at Harry's newly advanced level, there just wasn't enough room to execute the complicated lunges and slashes Decimare painstakingly taught him.

Decimare opened up their training session with his typical good humor and pleasant attitude. .:Your footwork is deplorable. I have trained snakes more graceful on their feet than you:.

Harry refrained from pointing out that snakes do not, in fact, possess feet. As Decimare was a snake himself, Harry figured he probably knew better than Harry exactly how graceful a snake could be on its non-existent feet.

Today they were taking a page from some 14th century Italian Blademaster who, according to the front cover of his training manual, apparently believed that the Bengal tiger rather resembled a large meercat.

.:This step is called _volta stabile_:. Decimare instructed as Harry moved into proper sword fighting position. .:You normally keep your weight on your forward leg – in _volta stabile_, you shift your weight to your back leg. Go:.

Harry went, promptly twisted his foot too much, and tumbled gracelessly to the floor.

.:Again:. the serpent hissed irritably. .:And this time, if you can manage it, attempt to move as if you haven't spent the last five months wasting my time, and have actually learned _something _from me:.

Needless to say, that lesson didn't go quite as well as Harry had hoped.

Luckily, the New Years Gala was that evening, so Harry had a valid excuse to skip the five hour training session Decimare had planned so he could prepare for the party. Missy's first self-appointed task of the holiday had been to fix up Harry's unruly hair, and it was once again in its short, spiky, blue-streaked form that Ginny had declared "incredibly sexy". After hearing his girlfriend make such a comment, any protests Harry held had quickly died in his mouth.

Three hours later, and finally satisfied with the way his emerald dress robes hung off his slender frame, Harry checked his hair one last time and hurried down to the Entrance Hall where James and Sirius were waiting – Remus had regrettably been forced to return to the unidentified task he was currently working on.

"Looking good, kid," Sirius said with a big wink, nudging James happily. "A spitting image of his old man."

James gave his son a stern look. "Now, Harry, what do we say when we meet a lady at such a prestigious event?"

"Good evening, Madam. May I say that your dress looks perfectly stunning?" Harry repeated dutifully.

"And when we meet the illustrious Minister for Magic?" Sirius prompted.

"Go to hell, you incredibly self-centered, overly pompous git," Harry responded.

James blanched and smacked Sirius over the head. "Let's leave the talking to me, alright?" Sirius just gave his friend a wide grin.

"Lighten up, Prongs. Harry knew I was joking. Right, kid?"

Harry blinked. "Er… sure I did…"

James rolled his eyes. "Honestly, Padfoot, I can't take you anywhere. Let's go, shall we, before Sirius comes up with another brilliant plan to have my son thrown in Azkaban."

One short Floo-trip later, the trio stepped out of one of the many marble fireplaces lining the immense entrance of the Ministry of Magic, dusting off their robes in an almost simultaneous motion. Sophisticated classical music floated over from the main party located in the main hall. Several passing young ladies, upon seeing the three, began fluttering their eyelashes and giggling among themselves. Sirius took that as his cue to go mingle, leaving Harry and James alone to exchange exasperated looks.

Shaking his head, James led his son through the throng of Britain's finest, pausing every once and a while to catch up on old times, and give Harry a chance to practice his flirting. Everything went fine until he met up with Cornelius Fudge's elderly sister, who had draped about seventeen different animal skins about her portly body.

"Lovely dress, Mrs. Browning," Harry simpered. "That fox stole makes you look absolutely stunning. Why, if I weren't an underage wizard who already has a much younger and more attractive girlfriend, I would certainly…" he trailed off as his father dragged him away before he could complete the sentence.

"Be nice, Harry," James reprimanded. An instant later, Minister Fudge trundled over to see what had upset his dear sister. "Minister Fudge!" James exclaimed in delight. "You look so dashing in those robes! I'm surprised you managed to even fit into them! You know, they say that pot bellies are only for the pathetic and slovenly, but you certainly proved them wrong!"

As Fudge's tiny mind worked through this, it was Harry's turn to drag his father out of harm's way before the Minister set his pet Aurors on James. _I guess the saying really is true, _he thought. _Like Father, like son. _The thought was a comforting one.

Surprisingly enough, the evening passed rather quickly, and the father-son duo only had to bail each other out of trouble seven times. At eleven, Harry ditched his father to go hang with the Weasley twins, who appeared to be attempting to convince Fudge's sister to eat one of their nosebleed nougats. James set out to locate Sirius, who had somehow attracted about five women to his side, gotten them all drunk, and was now dancing with them in a manner not quite appropriate for a black tie event.

"How you two doing?" Harry greeted as the twins' faces lit up at the sight of their partner in crime.

"Harry!" they chorused. "We were just talking about you!"

Harry blinked. "Er… you were?"

"Harry, old chap," Fred said in a friendly manner, seizing Harry's elbow in a vice-like grip. "Come with us, would you?"

"Won't take a minute," George assured him, grabbing Harry's other arm. Together the twins hauled Harry out of the hall and down a deserted side corridor, where they quickly cast a silencing spell around the whole area.

"You haven't been having any strange visions of late, have you?" Fred asked the instant the area was secure.

Harry gave him a suspicious look. "Why do you want to know?"

George waved his hand dismissively. "Don't worry your fuzzy little head over it."

"Fuzzy?"

"Just give us a yes or no," Fred prompted.

"Er… no?"

Suddenly the twins were all smiles and chuckles again, all traces of seriousness gone. "Lovely talking to you, Harry!" George said cheerfully. "Do stop by our offices more often. We have so much to discuss."

"You have an office?"

"Technically it's our dorm room, at least until we get an actual location," Fred explained. "But ever since we kicked Lee out, there's been more than enough room for our paperwork and experiments!"

"Didn't he mind?" Harry asked uncertainly.

The twins laughed. "Don't be daft," they chorused. "We sent him to live with the seventh year girls. He's not complaining, and apparently neither are they." They gave him a huge wink.

Rolling his eyes, Harry punched Fred's arm good-naturedly and returned to the chaos of the Gala, which was really starting to heat up. The string quartet providing music had been abducted by someone (probably Sirius), and in their place an enchanted drum set and three electric guitars rocked out to "Crazy Little Thing Called Love".

The vocalist was something of a surprise, though.

"This thing called love, I just can't handle it!" Tristan howled into the microphone, his miniscule body covered in a pink-sequined suit four sizes too large for him.

"Lord, someone get him down from there," Harry muttered as Ministry officials hurried toward the stage to apprehend the party crasher. He winced. "I didn't mean them!" Thinking quickly, Harry used his slighter frame to slip through the crowd, pull the singing Hufflepuff off the stage, and dive under the buffet table with him before the officials could arrest Tristan.

"What are you _doing_?" Harry demanded furiously. "This is a high society event! You're going to get thrown in Azkaban if you crash a party like this!"

Tristan gave him a dubious look. "A hit. A very palpable hit."

Harry groaned. "Shakespeare. Brilliant. Look, how did you get in here anyway?"

"The play's the thing," Tristan said happily.

"Let's just get you out of here before they Avada Kedavra you," Harry sighed. "Come on, we need to… where are you going?" Sighing, Harry clambered to his feet and hurried after the deranged boy, who seemed to be heading straight for none other than James Potter. "This can't be good," Harry moaned.

Before James could react, Tristan rocketed into him full tilt, wrapping his tiny arms around James's waist. Gaping at the child clutching onto him, James gingerly reached down and extracted Tristan's arms from around him.

"You!" he grimaced. "Why am I not surprised to see you here?"

Unaware of the history between Tristan and his father, Harry hurried over and grabbed Tristan sternly by the shoulder. "You can't just go barreling into people. Someone might get hurt!" As the Hufflepuff boy seemed to have no survival sense whatsoever, Harry unconsciously found himself slipping into the role of irritated older brother. A _really _irritated older brother.

Ignoring the teen gripping his arm, Tristan raised his big brown eyes to James and said in a rather high-pitched voice, "Hi, James!" He flipped his hair over his shoulder – which wasn't easy, as it was as short as Harry's – and smiled coquettishly. Father and son watched in astonishment as the eleven year old boy proceeded to attempt to seduce James Potter.

"You sure look handsome this evening," he flirted, batting his eyelashes in a very feminine manner. "I haven't seen you this attractive in ages. Makes me want to grab you and kiss you until you-"

Horrified, Harry yanked the possibly-gay boy away from his equally horrified father, and dragged him off before he could further traumatize an incredibly distraught James. While Harry, in the privacy of a dead end corridor, berated the boy soundly for improper, frankly disgusting behavior, Tristan merely stood silently with a rather amused expression on his youthful face.

"… and that's just _wrong_!" Harry concluded. "Incredibly wrong on _so _many levels! And why were you speaking intelligibly to him? You aren't allowed to be crazy to some people, and sane to others!"

"Alas, poor Yorrick, I knew him well!" Tristan protested.

Harry sighed, hand running through his hair in a desperate attempt to stop himself from physically attacking the infuriating child. "You know what? Just forget it. I'm going back to the party. Try not to hit on any other men twice your age while I'm gone."

"There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!" Tristan retorted angrily.

Harry glared.

"Banana?" Tristan tried weakly.

Harry just shook his head and continued down the hall, a sneaking suspicion growing in his mind. As soon as Harry rounded the corner, he paused a split second, then sprinted back around the corner. Sure enough, the Hufflepuff boy had disappeared without a trace, despite the fact that the door behind Harry was the only exit in the room. Scratching his head in confusion, Harry turned back and made his way out of the room. _There's something very strange about that boy…_

"Never again," Sirius moaned miserably as Missy shoved a bag of ice against his throbbing forehead. "Next time someone offers me fire whiskey, remind me to hex them to Bermuda."

"I hear Bermuda's nice this time of year," James offered as he shuttered the windows close so Sirius didn't have to squeeze his eyes shut against the offensive brightness. "And as I recall, _you _were the one who offered to buy drinks, not the other way around."

Stifling a laugh, Harry hurried out of the dining room before his laughter offended Sirius's tender ears. While Harry himself had never experienced the joys of a head-splitting hangover, from Sirius's howls of discomfort, he figured it wasn't the most pleasant sensation in the world.

Harry spent the day with Missy, as James was busy babysitting Sirius. The house elf seemed delighted with the unexpected company, and proceeded to give Harry the grand tour of the Manor, much to Harry's bewilderment.

"Er… Missy… I've already had the tour. Five months ago, in fact."

"Missy likes you," Missy explained. "So Missy gives you special tour. Even Mister Sirius doesn't know this tour."

Suddenly intrigued, Harry picked up the pace as he followed the elf up the spiral staircase. "Does dad know about this special tour?"

Missy smiled slyly. "How does Harry Potter think Master James found that secret room of his in the first place? The one Master brews his animal potion in?"

A metaphorical light bulb flickered over Harry's head. "That's how he found it in his second year! You showed it to him!"

Missy bobbed her potato-shaped head. "Master is excellent at stating the obvious."

Harry blinked at the surprisingly Decimare-esque comment. "You haven't been spending time with Decimare by any chance, have you?" When the house elf gave him a perplexed look, Harry quickly said, "Never mind."

The tour started on the roof of the manor, where, nestled between the sloping roofs, ran a narrow pathway with treacherous drops on either side. Gulping, but never one to back down from a challenge, Harry carefully followed Missy as she picked her way along the icy surface – it was winter, after all, thus even more hazardous than usual.

The path culminated at a small, plain oak door which was set against the side of the Potter Manor owlery tower, although at a lower level than the owlery itself was. Harry supposed it was as good a place for a secret room as any – after all, the whole interior of the tower couldn't be solely devoted to the spiral staircase that led up to the owlery.

Sure enough, when Missy opened the door with an incantation she explained to Harry, they emerged in a small circular, yet incredibly tall, room that occupied the entire interior of the tower. Set into the walls of the room where a huge assortment of glass orbs on shallow shelves, stretching all the way up to the top of the forty-foot high walls. A conveniently placed ladder allowed passage to the upper levels of the orb museum.

"These orbs is recordings from Master's ancestors," Missy explained in a hushed voice. _This must be a pretty meaningful place for her, _Harry realized. For him as well, if each orb really did contain messages from past Potters.

Harry wandered curiously over to the closest shelf and pulled an orb from the ledge. Immediately a spectral image wafted from the orb, coalescing into the shape of a wizard, whose silvery armor implied he was from the Medieval ages, or even earlier.

"… _and thus didst mine father partake unto me such wonders as beauty hath never laid eyes upon. A glistening shield bright as daylight, and an ebony sword black as Tartarus itself. Into my safe keeping did he lay these miracles, and I didst swear a most binding oath upon my soul…"_

_He's talking about Decimare and Merlin's Shield! _Harry realized. _He must have been the wizard who put the sword and shield in the Potter vault in the first place! _

.:Sir Timothy Potter:. Decimare hissed maliciously from his spot around Harry's finger. .:Condemned me to five hundred years of isolation. You'd do better to smash that orb than listen to his meaningless drivel:.

Harry suppressed a grin. Replacing the orb on the shelf, he turned to Missy, who seemed impatient to continue their tour of the Potter Manor's secret hiding spots. Making a mental note to return to this spot in the future, Harry gave the orb one last glance, before following the tiny elf from the room.

Three days from the time Harry would have to return to Hogwarts, he marched into the sitting room - reminiscent of the Gryffindor common room - where James and Sirius sat playing an intense game of wizarding chess.

"I'm ready," he declared, causing James and Sirius to respond immediately in interest like the excellent guardians they were – actually, they ignored him completely, but that wasn't the point.

"Ready for what?" James finally said, looking up at his son. His gaze returned almost immediately to the board, his finger flicking out to whack his knight across the head for directing a rather crude comment towards Sirius's queen.

"I'm ready to do it," Harry repeated. "The Animagus transformation. I'm ready for the final stage."

_That _got the gamers attention. Leaping to their feet, the duo thrust the chessboard aside without a backwards glance, grabbed Harry by the arms, and unceremoniously marched him off to the secret laboratory under Potter Manor they'd visited over the summer. _My arms are sure getting grabbed a lot these days_, Harry reflected.

Once safely locked in the stone room, James and Sirius set about cleaning out the place so they could prepare the final stage of the transformation. Harry was about to draw his wand and help vanish the mound of used parchment, but luckily Decimare stopped him before he could actually do so.

.:In case you forgot, oh brilliant one:. Decimare hissed .:You aren't _supposed _to know the vanishing charm at such an advanced level. That is a spell taught in seventh year. Are you in seventh year, Master:.

'No,' Harry repeated with a roll of his eyes. 'You don't have to talk to me like I'm a kid, Decimare.'

.:On the contrary:. the snake countered. .:I find that you respond much better to simple, non-complicated instructions. In fact, it would be an interesting experiment to see if you are actually capable of multi-tasking. Based on my past observations, it is highly unlikely, but you have surprised me before…:.

Decimare trailed off when Harry brought his fist smashing down on the serpentine ring. It hurt his hand a lot more than it hurt the snake spirit, but it still filled Harry with satisfaction at getting his irritating sword to shut up.

"All ready," James announced once the floor was spotless, leaving plenty of room for whatever the final step happened to entail. "Now come stand in the center of room. You won't need your wand," he added as Harry moved to draw his wand.

Stepping into the designated space, Harry waited impatiently for the next step.

Sirius cleared his throat. "Now envision yourself standing naked in front of the entire Ministry of Magic."

Harry blinked. "You can't be serious."

"That's my name," Sirius agreed. "I guess if you don't want to envision yourself, you could always picture Dumbledore and McGonagall making passionate-" James hastily clamped a hand on his friends mouth before he could get any further into that speech. His father looked just as disgusted by the mental image as Harry felt.

"Can we skip this step entirely?" Harry asked timidly when James finally released his friend, after giving him a warning look that Sirius disregarded on principal.

"That _wasn't _a step," James groaned. "Sirius, you're fired. Go sit in the corner." Sirius barked a laugh and took a precarious seat upon a tilted stack of books. Shaking his head, James returned his attention to Harry, who was watching the scene in amusement.

"Now that you're able to turn yourself more or less into your Animagus creature, we go to the final step," James explained. "This is rather simple-"

"That's a relief," Harry sighed.

"… while at the same time being the hardest part of the entire transformation," James concluded.

"Bugger."

James and Sirius proceeded to tag team their way through the explanation of the final stage, which Harry more or less understood. It turned out to be a conglomeration of three potions, several lengthy incantations and, for whatever reason, an ostrich feather.

"We don't really understand what it's for either," James admitted. "But that's what the book said, so we didn't really question it."

The afternoon passed in a blur of potion fumes, eerie chanting, and very odd sensations coursing through Harry's body that made him seriously wonder if they were doing everything correctly. By the time dinner had passed, though, the potions were roiling uncomfortably in Harry's stomach, cryptic symbols covered his face and arms, and he felt wholly ridiculous.

"And now… the last incantation," James whispered dramatically as he and Sirius watched Harry in eager anticipation. Sirius had grown progressively more bored as the afternoon progressed, and now he seemed desperate for something interesting to happen.

"_Commuto Animagus metamorphisos_," Harry said in a hushed voice, moving his hands in the intricate pattern it had taken him half an hour to perfect. A golden glow emanated from his outstretched fingers, spreading up his arms, across his chest, until it suffused his whole body in blinding light. Sirius and James averted their eyes as the light became unbearably brilliant.

The sensation Harry felt as this happened… he couldn't describe it if he tried. It was like Nirvana, utter relaxation, and a rollercoaster ride, all at the same time. If Harry had known how it felt to be completely stoned, he would have added that feeling to the list. It was… incredible.

As suddenly as the glow had appeared, it vanished without a trace, leaving Harry standing in the middle of the room, gasping for breath as if he'd just run ten miles without pause. His knees wobbled, and an instant later James and Sirius were beside him, guiding him to a rickety chair and handing him a huge mug of delightfully cool water.

"I think it worked," Sirius commented, taking in the awestruck expression on Harry's face. "It's too bad you can only do that spell once – I've never felt anything else like it."

James clapped his hand down on Harry's shoulder, excitement written all over his handsome features. "Now we get to see if it worked! Give it a go, Harry! No more concentration necessary! Just imagine yourself and your Animagus form in your mind, then push the two images on top of each other. If everything went as planned, you should transform!"

Standing a bit unsteadily, Harry wobbled back to the center of the room and set his wearied mind to the task. His image fixed in his mind, along with the feathered peregrine falcon, he used the last bit of energy he had last and merged the two pictures together.

The oddest sensation rippled down his body, and Harry squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation. When he opened them, he was shocked to see Sirius and James towering like giants over his head – feathered – not to mention everything was about a thousand times clearer than he'd ever seen before.

"It worked!" Harry squawked.

"You can't speak English in Animagus form," Sirius said helpfully. "Unless you've ever seen a falcon talk. Although if you were a parrot, I suppose…" he trailed off in thought, a rare occurrence for the fun-loving Animagus.

Unfurling his wings, Harry gave a few tentative flaps, and found, to his delight, his feet lifting off the ground. Unfortunately, he was a bit too delighted by this, grew overexcited, and ended up face-planting into the hard stone floor.

"I think it's time you change back," James said hastily as his son squawked in annoyance. "Do exactly the same thing, except this time you're separating the images, not merging them."

Doing as told, the rippling sensation returned, and an instant later Harry was back to his normal – rather handsome, if he did say so himself – form. Grinning from ear to ear, Harry gave his guardians a rib-splitting hug that had them gasping for air.

"I'm an Animagus!" he crowed. "A falcon! I can _fly_! Brilliant!"

Sirius and James exchanged an envious look, making Harry smile all the harder.


	37. Tell All

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except, of course, my darling Tristan.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Thirty Seven – Tell all

All too soon it was time to return to Hogwarts, and Harry was nearing a complete mental breakdown. This was mainly due to the fact that Sirius and James had disappeared the morning of their departure, and he couldn't find them after three hours of frantic searching.

"Missy, you have to tell me where they went!" Harry pleaded, but the house elf wouldn't say a word on the subject.

"Master James said Missy shouldn't tell anyone anything," she repeated stubbornly.

"I'm his son!" Harry cried in exasperation.

"Is you really, Harry Potter, sir?" Missy replied existentially.

Harry groaned. "Never mind. Look, I'm going to fly to King's Cross without them. If they happen to turn up, you tell them where I went, alright? Oh, and see to it that my belongings get to Hogwarts, please."

Missy clapped a tiny fist to her chest. "Missy will see it done, Master-who-is-not-Harry-Potter."

"Er… you do that," Harry muttered. He was actually rather elated by this turn of events – he would have been forced to take that god-forsaken convertible had his guardians been here, but since they weren't, it would give him the perfect opportunity to practice flying in Animagus form.

Not bothering to pack away his belongings – that was Missy's job, and she'd attack him before letting him do the work for her – Harry ascended the spiral staircase in the entrance hall, climbing tirelessly up the seven stories until he emerged on the wind-swept roof.

Fixing the image of the peregrine falcon firmly in his mind, Harry made the images of the falcon and himself merge, and suddenly he was a tenth of his previous size, complete with wings, feathers, and piercing gold eyes. _Lookin' good_, he snickered to himself. _God, I sound like Sirius._

Launching off the roof of the manor, Harry spread his wings, and within moments was caught in a gentle updraft. Riding the thermal up into the sky, he was soon soaring among the clouds, looking down on the toy-sized manor and grounds.

Floating above the miniature landscape below, not a thing in sight but the fluffy clouds and cerulean sky stretching endlessly above, Harry realized that this was the essence of tranquility – he was at complete and utter peace with himself and everything around him. It was even better than flying on his Firebolt. And to think he hadn't believed such a travesty possible.

.:I see you are finally broadening your horizons:. Decimare commented. .:And to think that it only took completing an illegal transformation that only the greatest of wizards can master:.

Harry squawked in alarm and almost fell out of the sky. '_Bloody_ _hell_, Decimare! Where did you come from?"

Decimare hissed in amusement. .:And your stupidity takes another astonishingly large leap. You never fail to surprise me with your idiocy, master:.

'I'm a bird, for God's sake, Decimare,' Harry snapped. 'How are you still here with me? If you're in your ring form, you should have fallen off during the transformation!'

.:And yet when you completed the transformation the first time, I was still present at all times. Isn't that something:.

'Don't tell me,' Harry groaned. 'You somehow shift forms when I transform, right?'

.:I am currently a rather attractive bracelet around your left foot:. the snake agreed. .:And well done for figuring it out so quickly. I'd expected you to take at least another week and a half:.

'Bully for me,' Harry sighed. 'Look, did you want something, or are you just trying to annoy me?'

.:If you call perfecting your debating skills and honing your wit an annoyance, then yes, I am trying to annoy you:.

'How do you do that?' Harry demanded. 'Making me feel like I insulted you, when it's always the other way around?'

.:I'm an evil snake spirit trapped in a black sword, forged by the darkest wizard in magical history:. Decimare hissed. .:You figure it out:.

'I don't think you're all bad,' Harry commented idly. 'You can be downright helpful at times.'

.:Only when it serves my plan for global domination:. Decimare returned. .:Concentrate on your flying, master, you're about to hit that mountain:.

Harry squawked in horror and stared around furiously for the supposed mountain. There wasn't one in sight.

Decimare hissed in amusement. .:We're in England, master, there aren't any mountains at this altitude:.

Harry scowled. 'If you don't shut up soon, I'm going to find a mountain, just so I can fly us into it.'

Decimare shut up.

The train ride back to Hogwarts was uneventful in the extreme. Draco Malfoy seemed to be cooped up in his cabin and, miraculously, _not _looking for a fight, the Weasley twins were MIA, and Sirius and James were of course nowhere to be found.

It was actually peaceful for once. _Too _peaceful.

Sure enough, Harry's extraordinary bad luck reared it's ugly head halfway through the train ride, in the form of an anonymous owl flying in through the window and dropping a piece of parchment on Harry's lap.

"What is it?" Ginny asked as Harry curiously slit open the letter.

_Harry,_

_Things are well on my end. Not much to report, except that they are close on my tail, and I need to keep moving. Try to find a secure location for another meeting. I'll write again shortly._

_PP_

_PS: Go to that place we went to once. It should be helpful to you._

Harry relaxed. It seemed that Peter Pettigrew really could be trusted. Who'd have thought that his parent's best-friend-turned-traitor would actually switch sides so late in the game? It almost gave him hope that everything would turn out for the best.

"Who's PP?" Ginny asked curiously.

Almost.

"It's a… er…"

"Who's chasing this bloke?" Ron demanded. "This doesn't sound like anything good, mate."

"Ha ha!" Harry hastily laughed. "It's just a joke between… uh… my cousin and I."

"You mean Dudley?" Hermione asked suspiciously. "Harry, you hate Dudley."

"Yes, well… we made up over the summer," Harry lied. "He's finally broken from his parent's prejudiced ideology."

"Harry, that's wonderful!" Ginny squealed. "So he's writing to you now? That's so great for you!"

"Er… yeah, it is," Harry muttered.

Hermione wasn't convinced. "And he feels the need to write to you in code because…?"

Harry forced a laugh. "That's so in case his parents find the letters, they won't realize who he's actually talking to."

Ginny and Ron nodded. Hermione frowned. Harry decided he needed to leave. Immediately.

"I've got to… er… use the lavatory," he announced. "I'll be back in a second."

"There's something strange about that boy," Hermione declared the instant he was out of the compartment.

Images of sleepless nights spent clashing swords in the Chamber of Secrets flashed across Ginny's mind. "That's ridiculous," she muttered. "There's nothing wrong with him."

"I never said there was," Hermione sniffed. "I just said he's acting strangely. That's all."

Ginny sighed. _Harry had better tell Hermione and Ron soon about his secret little fighting club, because Hermione's about to figure it out. He'll lose more than their trust, he'll lose their friendship. And what with him keeping this secret for so many months, I'm inclined to be on their side._

"It's good to be back," Harry sighed, in a state of near-bliss as he lounged on his favorite armchair in the Gryffindor common room, girlfriend snuggled up on his lap, mug of steaming hot cocoa in hand, and fire crackling merrily in the background.

A sharp _rat-tat-tat _shattered the peaceful calm. Ginny woke from her daze with a groan, almost falling off the chair as Harry shifted in agitation. "Harry?"

"That almost sounded like…" Harry trailed off. Machine guns at Hogwarts? The idea was absurd. "Never mind."

Ginny scowled. "Well, whatever that was, it woke me from a _very _nice nap. Let's go find out who caused it." The scowling redhead rolled off her boyfriend, scrambled upright, and drew her wand with a flourish. Harry hurried to his feet as his girlfriend stormed towards the portrait hole.

"And what?" Harry demanded as the portrait slowly swung open. "Tell them off for making noise? It's not even eight o'clock, Gin, they're allowed to be as loud as they like."

"I'll kill them," was the girl's reply. "That way, they'll think twice before trying it again, won't they?"

"I'm not sure that's such a… whoa! Calm down and let's think this through, Gin!" The youngest Weasley was so infuriated that she'd nearly gone sprawling head over heels while trying to scramble through the portrait hole. Only Harry's quick thinking, and even quicker arms, had prevented the girl from tumbling to the floor.

"My savior," she snorted. "But that's not going to save whatever idiot's making noise at this hour of the night." Shaking his head, Harry settled for scurrying along behind the irate redhead, ready to catch the girl if she fell again in her haste, and desperately trying to think of a way to call her off the hunt.

_Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat_

The couple rounded the corridor where the noise seemed to be coming from, wands held in readiness – Ginny to stun whatever person dared produce such an obnoxious noise, and Harry to stun his girlfriend before she committed murder.

"Uh… hi…"

An incredibly caught-in-the-act Sirius Black stammered the greeting, while at the same time pounding his fist rather loudly on the wall. James appeared a split-second later, an innocent expression on his face, and shoved some sort of large, metallic object out of sight the instant he recognized Harry and Ginny.

"Harry! Ginny! What a surprise!" He didn't sound at all pleased, although Harry suspected the irritation in his voice was directed towards Sirius, who was wincing and rubbing his neck in embarrassment.

"They snuck up on me," Sirius muttered. "How was I supposed to see the kid when he was in his damned invisibility cloak?"

James smacked his friend upside the head. "Padfoot, you idiot, we borrowed the cloak from Harry this morning. You weren't keeping watch at all, were you?"

Sirius whined pathetically. "Come on, Prongs, keeping watch is so boring!"

"And yet it needs to be done," James snapped. "I offered to keep watch, and you could do the actual work, but _no_, Sirius Black turns out to be deathly afraid of machine guns!"

"They're loud," Sirius protested.

"They're supposed to be," James hissed. "And another thing! You can't just leave… er…"

"Do go on," Harry invited. "What did Sirius leave? And where _were _you two this morning?"

"Is it just me, or have we _completely _lost our edge?" Sirius sighed.

"Course not," James huffed. "He's the next generation of the Marauders. We can't help but let our guard down around him – it's in the rulebook."

"There's a rulebook?" Harry demanded.

"You saw nothing," Sirius whispered, waving his arms in what he apparently thought was a spooky manner. "You heard nothing, and as soon as you leave this corridor, you will forget that anything ever happened."

"I don't think so!" Ginny snarled. "Your stupid machine gun woke me up from a _very _peaceful slumber!"

An expression of complete confusion flashed across Sirius's face. "Machine gun? What machine gun?"

An angry flush spread up Ginny's alabaster cheeks. "The one Mr. Potter just hid away – the one he said you're deathly afraid of! The one that you're apparently trying to keep secret, in which case you should really cast a silencing charm on it before firing it off right beside the bloody Gryffindor common room!"

"Padfoot…" James growled dangerously.

"Hey, that was your job, mate," Sirius protested. "After I forgot last time, you said I'm not allowed within ten feet of a silencing charm."

"Last time?" Harry asked curiously.

"The machine guns," Ginny snapped, not to be deterred.

"What machine guns?" James and Sirius chorused.

Harry sighed. "Gin, forget it. Come on; let's go back to the common room. I'll even give you some of that butterbeer I was saving up for a rainy day. We're not getting anything out of these clowns."

"Hey, these clowns happen to be your legal guardians!" James objected. "Show some respect, young man!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Look, just try to remember the silencing charm next time, and for God's sake don't kill yourselves in whatever fool experiment you're up to now."

"Check!"

"Check check!"

"Check check check!"

"Let's go," Ginny moaned. "I'd like that butterbeer right about now."

"Done!" James sighed happily, collapsing onto his feather bed with a moan of relief. "It took us eleven hours, twenty seven espressos, six hundred screws, and my son's complete loss of respect for us, but Operation Foefire is finally complete!"

"I still say we should have called it Operation Boom," Sirius grumbled.

"_I _wanted to call it that," James reminded him.

"What, so now we aren't the same person?" Sirius demanded. "Perish the thought!"

"Shaddup, Padfoot," the bespectacled man replied amicably. "At least we're done. No more sneaking around after hours worrying over being caught installing deadly devices into a children's school."

"That wouldn't have looked good on our permanent record," Sirius noted.

"Again, we are _not _the same person," James replied tiredly.

"You know, it doesn't _have _to be that way…"

"Sirius! Are you proposing to me?" James demanded, scandalized.

"Is it so strange to consider?" Sirius asked softly. "Two men, haunted by their pasts, scarred by their deeds, living together in a world fraught with danger and heartache…"

"I never thought of it like that," James whispered. "Until now, it never struck me how much we had in common. Oh, Padfoot, I will! I will marry you!"

"The only question now is," Sirius grinned wickedly, "who's going to be the wife? You'd look awfully cute in a miniskirt."

Twin gasps of horror resounded through the cozy bedroom. Unable to contain himself any longer, James doubled over in laughter and fell to the floor, tears of mirth streaming from his dark eyes.

"You two can come out now," Sirius snickered. "Joke's over."

A pair of disgruntled Weasley twins clambered through the window into the room, both steadfastly avoiding looking at the older Marauders.

"Very funny," Fred grumbled. "I think I just got my first grey hair thanks to you prats."

"So when's the wedding?" George asked brightly. "I bet you're looking forward to the wedding night in particular. I can just picture the pair of you, all hot and sweaty, rolling around on a giant feather mattress…"

Any and all laughter abruptly cut off as James switched from hysterical chortling to horrified gasping and choking. Sirius turned an interesting shade of puce and staggered back a few steps to collapse on the bed.

"Nice one," Fred grinned, exchanging a high five with his beaming twin.

"You were my source of inspiration," George replied modestly.

Fred blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

George affected an angelic expression. "Oh, nothing. But after last night, I thought you'd be ready to take the next step and come out of the closet."

"Last night?" James choked. "What the _hell _is going on here?"

Fred gave him a confused look. "You should know – you were there, after all, Mister_ Fluffy Pants_."

Sirius gave a pained moan.

James couldn't handle it anymore. What had started out a game had turned into… he fainted to the floor.

Fred and George smirked. No one made a fool of the Weasley twins without paying the price.

Moments later Sirius propped himself up and asked salaciously: "So which one of you was on top?"

The twins decided to join James in unconsciousness.

The first day of classes following Christmas break finally rolled around, and Harry couldn't have been happier. This was mainly due to the fact that he had Defense Against the Dark Arts first off, which promised a whole world of amusement for the bespectacled boy.

"You're looking unusually cheery for a boy about to go endure two hours of Dolores Umbridge," Hermione noted suspiciously. Harry had the feeling that his best friend had finally decided to figure out just what was going on with him.

"You're off your rocker, Hermione," Ron sniggered. The bushy haired witch leveled a pointed glare at her friend's head. "Er… I meant that… oh, come on now, you know I didn't mean it like that!" he protested. "It's the first day back! Do you really think Harry's dad would leave us to Umbridge's mercy right after Christmas holidays?"

"Well, I suppose not…" Hermione trailed off. "It's not that I don't eagerly anticipate seeing Dolores Umbridge humiliated, Ronald, I just don't approve of Sirius and Mr. Potter disrespecting a professor like that!"

"She's not a teacher, if that makes you feel any better," Ron offered. "No real Hogwarts professor would be caught dead wearing fluorescent pink."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Fred said airily as he and George walked past the trio. "I've heard that Snape is all about the pink this term."

"Which I'll interpret as you dyed either his hair or robes pink, and are now dropping terribly unsubtle hints as a type of foreshadowing for the laugh we will no doubt experience upon seeing the good Potions master in fuchsia," Hermione concluded.

Fred and George were crestfallen. "How did you guess?" George moaned. "Now the joke is ruined."

"Let's go undo it before anyone sees," Fred agreed, doing an about-face. "Can't have our pranks being that predictable. It's a stain on the Marauder name." They marched off in unison, arms swinging morosely at their sides.

"I swear those two get stranger every day," Hermione sighed. "Come on, class is starting in a moment."

They hurried into the classroom and took their seats, pretending not to notice as they felt something invisible brush past them as they entered. "Told you they wouldn't let us down," Ron grinned smugly.

"Oh, put a sock in it," Hermione huffed.

Professor Umbridge waddled up to the front of the room in all her frilly glory, dull eyes gazing out over her assembled students. Tapping her short wand on the blackboard, instructions for the day's lesson appeared on its inky surface.

.:I do believe she's outdone herself on this one:. Decimare hissed. .:This is truly a unique assignment. I could almost grow to like this woman:.

'You don't grow,' Harry snapped. 'You're an inanimate object. And be quiet – I'm trying to figure out how this could possibly help us in defending against dark wizards.'

"This is barmy," Ron muttered to Harry. "Even for her, this is a stretch."

The blackboard read:

_Today's Assignment_

_Dark wizards, while known for cursing first and asking questions later, have been known to let their victims go free if faced with docility and passiveness. Thus today's lesson will teach the students how to present themselves as non-threatening targets. Follow the instructions below to maintain the aura of calm necessary to lull a practitioner of the Dark Arts into complacency:_

_1) Blink as infrequently as possible_

_2) Exhale through the nose, inhale through the mouth_

_3) Let arms dangle loosely from sides_

_If the Dark wizard continues his aggression, fall to the ground and maim unconsciousness._

"Blink as infrequently as possible?" Hermione demanded in righteous indignation. "If a Death Eater chooses to kill you, he's going to kill you, no matter how infrequently you breathe!"

"I suppose it makes sense if you're an innocent bystander," Ron hypothesized.

"Falling to the ground and maiming unconsciousness will not stop a Death Eater from killing you," Harry protested. "As a matter of fact, he'll think you're a coward, and probably Crucio you or something!"

"Children!" Umbridge trilled as she scuttled over. "This exercise calls for complete silence!"

"Professor Umbridge-"

"_Hand_, Mister Potter!" Umbridge snapped.

Harry rolled his eyes and fell silent. Twenty minutes passed in absolute silence, broken only by Umbridge's occasional rebuke of "You aren't blinking infrequently, Mister Finnigan!"

Salvation came in the form of Sirius and James, who had, after surveying the situation in their invisibility cloaks, contemplated various methods of disrupting the class, until finally deciding to fall back on an old favorite.

With fifteen minutes to go, the school's alarm suddenly blared into existence, disrupting beautifully the silence Umbridge had been working so hard to maintain.

"Attention Hogwarts!" Sirius's voice bellowed over the magical loudspeakers. "This is an Evacuation Exercise! All personnel are to proceed to the Black Lake immediately, no matter what pointless class they happen to be in at the moment-"

There was a brief sound of struggling as James wrested the microphone from Sirius. "That is to say, Hogwarts, just run through the drill like we usually do." His voice dropped. "Even if we weren't doing these damn drills just to drive Umbridge out of her mind, they're still excellent practice for when the real attack comes."

"Potter!" Umbridge bellowed, so loudly that the Auror actually heard her from wherever he was hiding.

"Let's get going, folks," Sirius concluded.

There was really nothing Umbridge could do but let the students go. For the hundredth time that year. It wasn't like Dumbledore was going to put a stop to Sirius and James's fire drills – he disliked Umbridge just as much as the rest of the school.

The trio strolled down to the lakeside with the rest of the school, claiming a spot near the squid's favorite haunt, which ensured there wouldn't be any eavesdroppers on their conversation.

"Harry, I want to know what's going on," Hermione announced. "I want to know where you go at night, what you've been doing with Sirius and Mr. Potter for hours in the afternoons, who _really _wrote to you on the train, and why Ginny seems to be more in the loop than Ron and I are."

'So this is how I'm going to die,' Harry thought mournfully. 'Strangled to death by my best friends for lying to them for half a year.'

.:Don't be melodramatic:. Decimare snapped. .:I'm more likely to kill you than they are:.

'And that suddenly makes me feel _so _much better,' he sighed.

Ron was starting to turn red. "Why won't you tell us what's going on? You're our best friend! And I thought we were yours!"

"You are!" Harry exclaimed. "It's just… I wasn't really… that is to say…"

.:Oh, just tell them:. Decimare sighed. .:You've been destroying their trust in you for long enough:.

'You have such a way with words,' Harry muttered. He took a deep breath.

"Alright. Here goes. Most nights I go down to the Chamber of Secrets, where I practice the art of sword-fighting with my possessed sword Decimare, which I stole from the Potter vault this summer. Sirius and my father have been teaching me during the evenings how to become an Animagus, which I mastered over the break, and can now become a peregrine falcon with only a thought. Ginny knows more than you because she followed me into the Chamber in the fall, and has been joining me ever since in my sword-fighting lessons."

He paused. Ron and Hermione were gaping at him with identical looks of incomprehension.

.:Once more, with feeling:. Decimare quipped.

"Shut up," Harry snapped. Aloud. Ron and Hermione shook out of their stupor to glare at him. "Not you two!" he stammered. "Decimare!"

Hermione blinked. "Decimare. Which would be your… sword?"

"That's right," Harry agreed.

"Which you keep in the Chamber," Ron added.

"No, I've got it with me right now," Harry corrected. His friends stared at him as if he were insane. "It can shape shift into a ring," he explained.

"Of course it can," Hermione agreed, watching him uneasily, as if he were about to attack her for no apparent reason.

"I'm not insane!" Harry snapped. "Stop looking at me like that! I'll prove it – Decimare, shift!"

Nothing happened.

'_Now_,' Harry growled mentally.

There was a slurping sound, and suddenly a gleaming black sword appeared in Harry's hand, the tiny obsidian snake wrapped around the hilt weaving sinuously in the morning breeze.

"Blimey," Ron breathed. "That's bloody brilliant, mate!"

Well, at least one of his friends didn't hate him. Hermione, meanwhile, looked absolutely furious.

"So you're saying that you stole this sword from the Potter vault _six months ago_?" she nearly shouted. "And you didn't think it important to tell us! Harry, you have no idea what that thing is! Look! That snake carving on the hilt is moving! This is probably some horribly dark magical object! You have no idea what it could do to you!"

"And Ginny knows all about this?" Ron said quietly, looking rather crestfallen.

Harry immediately leapt to his own defense. "It's not because I didn't trust you guys, it's just that she followed me into the Chamber without my knowing! I _had _to tell her! And besides, she doesn't know everything. Only about Decimare."

"You talk about it like it's a person," Hermione noted.

Decimare hissed loudly in response. Hermione and Ron backpedaled furiously. .:Skittish things, aren't they:. Decimare said in amusement.

"He says you're skittish," Harry said helpfully.

"This is one of those parselmouth things, isn't it?" Hermione demanded. "Harry, I hate to say it, but snakes are usually bad news, even if you can speak their language! For all we know, this sword of yours could have been forged by… I don't know, Salazar Slytherin, for heaven's sake!"

Harry whistled in admiration. "Good guess." His friends blanched.

"Okay," Hermione managed, pulling herself back together with remarkable poise. "So our best friend's been possessed by an evil incarnation of Salazar Slytherin. What about this Animagus thing?"

"A peregrine falcon," Ron recalled. "If that's true, mate…"

"I'll show you, don't worry," Harry grinned. He glanced around to make sure no one was watching. "Okay. Ready?"

"I don't know if this is such a good ide-eeeeek!" Hermione squealed in alarm as Harry suddenly transformed into his peregrine falcon form. The squeal instantly changed to a coo of delight, and he was soon gathered in the bushy-haired witch's arms, while Ron looked on with no small amount of jealousy. Whether that was for his ability to transform, or the fact that he was currently snuggled in Hermione's arms, Harry couldn't tell.

Wiggling a little to get free, Harry clambered out of the brunette's arms and, with a mighty flap of his (albeit tiny) wings, he soared into the crisp morning air. Gaining some altitude, he performed a few of the simple aerial tricks he'd worked out, and even did a little dive, to the delight of his captive audience.

When he returned to the ground and shifted back to human form, however, the disapproving frowns had returned to his friends' faces. "So you've been working on that all this time, and you _never _told us?" Hermione said softly.

"You've been teaching my sister how to use a _sword_?" was Ron's major grievance.

"Yes, and yes," Harry admitted. "To the first – Hermione, I wanted to tell you, but I felt so bad for taking the sword that I didn't want to tell anyone – again, Ginny only knows because she followed me. The Animagus thing – my dad just came back to life after being dead for _fourteen years_ – I thought it'd be nice to have something that was just between us. And Sirius, but he's practically family."

"And the part about you trying to decapitate my sister with pointy weapons?" Ron growled.

Harry shrugged helplessly. "She saw me practicing, and wanted to learn how to fight. What did you want me to do, say no? She would've murdered me!"

Ron looked ready to argue, but stopped when he remembered his sister's temper. "Fine," he grunted. "But if you hurt her, I'll kill you."

"Yes, I kind of got that," Harry grinned tentatively. "Are we good?"

Ron shrugged. "I s'pose. But you pull this secretive crap again, and I'm never going to speak to you as long as I live. Got it?" Harry nodded hastily, and Ron finally smiled.

Hermione bristled. "Well, that's all well and good for you, Ronald, but I'm not so forgiving! Harry, I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life, but you ought to show that sword to your father or the Headmaster! It could be dangerous!"

Harry frowned. "It sure seems like you're trying to tell me _exactly _how to live my life, Hermione. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but I _didn't_, and that's that. Stop telling me what to do!"

"Maybe I wouldn't have to if you'd _trusted us enough to tell us about this_!" Hermione shrieked. Before Harry could do anything, the brunette burst into tears and tore off across the grounds.

"She's got a point, you know," Ron told Harry with a grim expression. "I don't know when you stopped trusting us, mate, but it hurts. When you feel like being our friend again, you know where to find us. Try spending an evening in the common room – it can be just fun as your secret chamber. But then, you wouldn't know, would you?"

"Ron…"

Giving him a frustrated look, Ron shook his head and took off after Hermione. Harry watched them go with a heavy heart. 'That went well.'

.:That went abysmally:. Decimare corrected. .:You were supposed to beg forgiveness for being a secretive git, not accuse them of trying to control you:.

'She was trying to take you away!' Harry protested. 'And before you say anything, yes, I'm aware of how scarily possessive I just sounded of you.'

Decimare hissed in annoyance. .:So now what, master? You're going to let your best friends walk away without putting up any resistance whatsoever? I thought you idiotic Gryffindors were against that sort of thing:.

'We are,' Harry agreed. 'I'm just worried that if I go after them now, it'll be too soon. What if I say something that they won't forgive?'

A horrible thought struck him.

'And what about when they find out about Pettigrew?' he demanded. 'Decimare, they'll hate me!'

.:You could have just told them everything:. Decimare pointed out. .:Then this wouldn't be an issue:.

'Decimare,' Harry snapped. 'I've been hiding things from them for so long, they don't trust me like they used to. If I told them about Pettigrew and Merlin's shield, they'd go straight to Dumbledore.'

.:Interesting point:. the snake admitted. .:Very well. I solemnly swear that I won't so much as mention Pettigrew to your friends unless you do first:.

Harry groaned. 'You're all heart, Decimare.'

.:It certainly isn't my fault your idiotic acquaintances are too primitive to understand my speech:. Decimare hissed. .:And you'd do well to keep those sarcastic comments to yourself, master. Can't have you infringing on my trademark activity:.

A loud bell sounded, signaling the end of the evacuation drill. Harry sighed. 'I suppose I'd better tell Ginny about the Animagus thing before Ron and Hermione give her the third degree. Wouldn't want to be single again because she finds out from them instead of me.'

.:That isn't necessarily a bad thing:. Decimare said thoughtfully. .:After all, if you don't have that girl monopolizing all your time, you'll be able to do more important things:.

Harry's heart lifted a little. 'Yeah? Like what?'

.:Practicing your Latin:. the snake offered. .:The language is essential for any spell caster to learn. We could even start now, if you like. Let us begin with declining the noun _nautae_. _Nauta, nautae, nautae, nautam_…:.

Harry blanched. 'Like I said, I'd better find Ginny. Now, if possible.'

The pair took off toward the castle, Decimare reciting its endless list of noun declensions, and Harry clutching his head in abject misery the whole way.


	38. Some Mistakes You Just Can’t Avoid

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except, of course, my darling Tristan.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Thirty-Eight – Some Mistakes You Just Can't Avoid

The Hogwarts' rumor mill was one of the most formidable forces in all of Britain. While it was generally an amusing way to spend one's time (excepting whichever unfortunate soul happened to be the topic of current discussion), Harry found that the biggest problem with it was that it tended to get bored far too easily. This meant that once the current subject was exhausted, the trio of sixth year Hufflepuff girls who were the supposed ringleaders went looking for something new to gossip about. Two days back from Christmas holiday, that something was Harry. Or, more specifically, his father, James.

"Did you hear?"

"No! Tell me _everything_!"

"You know how Auror Potter's been hanging around the school since September?"

"On security duty with Auror Black. He's _sooo _dreamy!"

"That's not what I heard."

"What do you mean?"

"They say that Potter's _really _here because he has to watch over Harry Potter!"

"No! Why would Harry need looking after?"

"Apparently, he had a mental breakdown over the summer – went ballistic, firing spells in Muggle areas!"

"No!"

"Yes! Don't tell anyone I told you this, but I heard from my great-aunt's sister's nephew's brother's friend that Harry was called before the Wizengamot!"

"No!"

"For _murder_!"

"Oh my _god_!"

And so on. By the time Harry caught wind of the rumor, it had been circulating for all of twenty minutes, meaning the entire school had heard about it. Before Harry could even step foot into the Great Hall for breakfast, a flood of whispers broke out, accompanied by much paranoid muttering, some shrieking, and one student fainting in terror who had to be sent to the Hospital Wing.

Skulking over to the Gryffindor table as inconspicuously as he could, Harry dropped in beside Hermione and tried to hide himself behind her bushy hair. His attempts failed spectacularly, and Ginny, who was sitting directly across from them, nearly spit out her porridge laughing so hard.

"I hardly see what's so amusing," Hermione said sniffily. She still hadn't forgiven Harry for lying to she and Ron all that time – although it'd only been a day, Harry supposed, so the fact that she was speaking to him so soon could only be a good thing. "Those horrible Hufflepuff girls spreading such rumors will only make things harder for Harry!"

"How do you feel, Harry?" Ginny smirked, twisting a copper strand of hair around her ear. "Do you feel horribly scrutinized and violated?"

"Meh," Harry shrugged, pulling a rasher of sausages towards himself. "I had worse in second year."

"Fred and George didn't help much, did they?" Ron chortled, plopping down next to his sister. He was apparently more forgiving than their bushy-haired friend. When his three friends blinked at him, Ron paused, and suddenly noticed the unusually high amount of staring and pointing. Such things happened to Harry frequently, of course, but this was rather out of the norm for him. "Oy, what's going on?" he demanded, a bit too loudly.

Silence blanketed the hall as the majority of the muttering students froze, caught in the act. "Honestly," Hermione huffed just as loudly, so that her voice carried through the hall. "You people have come up with some fairly ridiculous rumors, but this one takes the cake! Mister Potter is most certainly _not _here at Hogwarts to-"

"-seduce the female populace, prank the Slytherins, and make the school into his personal playground for mayhem and mischief?" Sirius suggested brightly, making his typical dramatic entrance through the double doors of the Great Hall.

"That's not quite where I was going with that," Hermione said slowly.

"Go on," Sirius urged, sweeping over to the Gryffindor table to plop down next to Hermione. The whole hall watched, spellbound: the males out of mild amusement, the females captivated by the one and only Sirius Black. Never one to miss when he was being admired, Sirius produced a brilliant grin and tossed his hair back luxuriously. Half the female populace melted on the spot.

"You're an accomplished Auror, and they're under-aged," Harry reminded his godfather pointedly. Pouting, Sirius re-boarded his original train of thought.

"So what's this about my best friend having illicit relations with Professor Trelawney?" he asked innocently. Apparently karma was working against him, for James Potter happened to burst through the doors (which apparently magically shut after someone went through them) at that precise moment.

James cocked his messy-haired head to the side and peered at Sirius mildly. "If I didn't know better, Padfoot old pal, I'd swear you just said something that would force me to pound you to a bloody pulp in front of the entire population of Hogwarts."

"You don't have to hide it any longer," Sirius told him seriously. "We all know, and we're ready to give you any support you need. Love like yours and dear Sybil's doesn't come along every day." The female population nodded their heads in tandem with the smirking Auror.

"Okay," James decided, drawing his wand lightning fast and aiming it at Sirius' handsome head. "Time to die, Black."

"Not if I kill you first!" Sirius bellowed, drawing his own wand and leaping dramatically onto the Gryffindor table. Dishes of pancakes and bacon and eggs went flying in every direction. Harry had to throw himself over Hermione to shield her from an errant plate of taters. She rolled her eyes tolerantly, and he realized happily that she had forgiven him.

Sparks flew from the Aurors' wands as they danced a mad duel about the perimeter of the hall, each unnecessarily exuberant swing of their wands overturning tureens of bagels, pitchers of orange juice, and the occasional scowling Slytherin student.

"GENTLEMEN!" the Headmaster rumbled over the chaos of dueling Aurors, cheering students, and crashing plates. "KINDLY DESIST IN YOUR DISPLAY BEFORE I AM FORCED TO DO IT FOR YOU!"

Harry suppressed a snicker. Dumbledore obviously didn't know the two Aurors as well as he thought – Harry knew for a fact that his guardians were having too much fun to quit now. Then the army of owls swarmed into the hall for the morning post, and the duel was cut off rather abruptly when a package apparently containing an iron cauldron impacted painfully with Sirius' head.

As order was gradually restored, and Sirius and James were quietly escorted out of the hall, students fell back into conversation. Harry's supposed mental breakdown was ancient history after the events that had just transpired. "At least they aren't muttering about you anymore," Ginny told him with a helpless shrug.

"Yeah," Harry snorted. "Now they just think that my legal guardians are off their rockers."

"Don't worry about it," Hermione advised him kindly. "I'm sure the rumors will move on by tonight."

"Really?" Ron asked through a mouthful of sausage. "What are Sirius and Harry's Dad planning for tonight?"

Hermione gave him an exasperated look. "They aren't nearly as mischievous as you make them out to be! I just meant something else interesting would occur, not that they would be the ones to do it!"

"Oh," Ron said wisely, reaching for another croissant. "So what are Fred and George doing, then?"

Harry and Ginny glanced uneasily at each other and began to prepare for a hasty exit, should the brunette start swelling ominously. She was cut off, however, when a post owl dropped down in front of her and tossed the Daily Prophet onto her toast. Watching their friend's face change from irritation, to shock, to anger, Harry and Ginny exchanged worried looks.

"There's been a breakout," Hermione declared primly, handing the paper to Harry, who scanned the headline with a sinking heart.

_Mass Breakout at Azkaban – 12 Prisoners Escape_

_All Citizens Advised to Stay Indoors and Report Any Sightings to the Ministry_

_Werewolf Terrorist Group Suspected as Masterminds Behind the Breakout…_

The front page was covered with images of the twelve prisoners, with captions beside the photos listing the prisoner's name, the crimes they committed, and the sentence they were supposed to have served. Harry spotted one name, and his heart nearly stopped. _Bellatrix Lestrange. Convicted for the torture of two Ministry Employees._

Wordlessly passing the paper to Ginny, Harry glanced down the long table to Neville, whose face was paler than the bowl of porridge sitting half eaten in front of him. _At least the paper didn't mention who the employees were_, Harry thought. _That would have killed him._

As it was, Neville was clearly completely thrown by the notion that his parents' torturer was running free in Britain, rejoined with her master, and able to do whatever horrible atrocities she pleased. Before Harry could say anything, do anything, Neville had gotten to his feet and walked rather shakily from the hall.

"What's wrong with him?" Hermione asked quietly.

"He… uh…" Harry faltered. He was still trying out this 'tell my friends the truth' thing, but Dumbledore had expressly told him not to tell a soul. But then, when was the last time the ancient headmaster had bothered to look Harry in the eye? It wasn't like his friends were about to tease Neville or anything. "I think that the people Bellatrix Lestrange tortured were Neville's parents."

Ginny gasped, while Ron paled and Hermione looked absolutely stricken. "That's awful," Ginny whispered.

"Don't say anything to him," Harry added quickly. "I'm not really supposed to know, and clearly he's been trying to keep it quiet, so-"

"We won't say a word," Hermione promised firmly. By the stern look she gave him, Harry was pretty sure she was also rebuking him for not trusting them with his secrets. He gave her an apologetic look, and she smiled slightly and inclined her head as if to say, 'It's alright, just don't do it again'.

Well, he certainly didn't intend to. Once, that was, he told Ginny everything, sorted things out with Pettigrew, and somehow found a way to defeat the Dark Lord without any of his friends getting hurt in the process.

.:Your commitment to truth and honesty is heartbreaking:. Decimare drawled in his mind.

'Shut up,' Harry snapped at the irritating snake spirit.

.:oOo:.

Three days after the breakout, the horrified whispers and occasional mental breakdowns from the students who actually understood how dangerous the escaped Death Eaters were had eventually dulled down to only one or two incidents a day. James and Sirius were on overtime, relatively speaking, rushing back and forth from class to class escorting hysterical students to the hospital wing, or allaying the fears of various tear-faced first years. The latter didn't always work out so well.

"I'm worried 'bout my momma," one pig-tailed little Hufflepuff girl sniffed, clutching her house scarf to her chest as if it were a teddy bear. "She's in da Ministry, and they're saying them escapees is gonna target Ministry employees first!"

"It's alright," James said, soothing back the adorable girl's hair and patting her comfortingly on the head. "Everything's going to work out just fine. Sirius and I, here, we're Aurors, sweetie, and we're going to work with our colleagues to make sure the nasty men don't hurt anyone, including your momma."

"Oh, thank you, Mister!" she blubbered. Apparently tired of standing behind his partner and smiling reassuringly, Sirius decided to try some comforting of his own.

"And if worst things come to worse, and the Death Eaters do kill your momma, then James and I, here, we'll get our colleagues, and go blow the culprit's head off!" he said brightly.

"Wahhhhhh!" the little girl shrieked and raced off down the hall, bawling her eyes out.

James smacked his forehead. "Well done, Padfoot."

"Well, we don't have nearly enough Aurors to guard the Ministry alone, let alone Britain," Sirius shrugged. "Chances are tons of people will die, so we might as well assure these kids that their parents will be avenged."

"Padfoot," James said rhetorically, "have you ever had children?"

"No."

"Ever comforted a crying child?"

"Does baby Harry count?"

"You stole his toy broomstick," James snapped. "If you hadn't stopped Harry crying before Lily got back, she'd have murdered you."

"What's your point?" Sirius scowled.

"My point," James snarled, raising a finger dramatically, "is that… er… that is…" Sirius barked a laugh and slapped his best mate on the back, nearly knocking the befuddled man down, who was now furiously trying to remember what his point had been.

They retired to their private sitting room, where the pair engaged in a spirited game of Gobstones. The game only ended when Sirius, after messing up a shot and getting sprayed in the face with the stone's foul liquid, transfigured the entire set of Gobstones into a turkey. The impressive bit of animal transfiguration proceeded to chase James around the room, who was laughing hysterically each time the turkey warbled a battle cry and tried to head-butt him.

Exhausted, the pair collapsed on their plush armchairs and spent several minutes reminiscing on old times while watching the fire crackle in the hearth. Eventually, Sirius broached the topic they'd both been avoiding. "So… the breakout."

"We're going to have to do something about it," James agreed heavily. He fiddled idly with a loose thread on his emerald shirt. "But I don't know what else to do. I've gotten the centaurs to sign the alliance – if Voldemort attacks, they'll help us defend the castle."

"And we can't strengthen the wards," Sirius added.

James blinked. "Why not?"

"Because we aren't Warders, Prongs."

"Oh yeah."

"Even Operation Foefire is running smoothly," Sirius moaned. "Prongs, we don't have anything to do with ourselves! How did this _happen_?"

"Normally, when we were bored, we'd just pull some brilliant prank to get ourselves back on track," James mused. "But now we aren't allowed to prank students, and we can't do more to Umbridge than the fire drills."

"Dumbledore _did _say we wouldn't want to find out the consequences of pulling something like the insult thing last term," Sirius added glumly. "The man hates her as much as we do!"

"She's still the Minister's eyes and ears at Hogwarts," James sighed. "He can't do too much to her without the Ministry stepping in."

The pair sat in silence.

"So what do we do with ourselves?" Sirius asked finally.

"James, Sirius, I need your assistance in a matter," Dumbledore announced, striding into the room with his long, violet robes twinkling along in his wake. The two Marauders jerked their heads up eagerly. "Severus has told me that Voldemort is getting anxious. He still hasn't found You-Know-Who's shield, or the The-Other-You-Know-Who's sword-"

"Huh?" the men blinked.

Albus chuckled. "I suppose your chambers are secure enough for a little name dropping."

Sirius and James cast a quick glance at the air ducts, looking to see if a certain Hufflepuff boy was lurking around to eavesdrop. They didn't see anything, and turned back to the Headmaster as if they hadn't just stared at their air ducts for no apparent reason.

"Moving on," Dumbledore continued, "Voldemort still hasn't located Merlin's shield or Slytherin's sword, and he is getting very irritated. So irritated that he is keeping closer tabs on his followers. Severus hasn't been in the Dark Lord's radar for some time, busy maintaining his role as double agent at Hogwarts, but he needs to show his allegiance soon, or the game will be up."

"Well, he can just go on a raid, pretend to have fun, and Voldemort won't suspect a thing," James said as if it were obvious.

"That's the thing," Albus said. "The next raid is scheduled for tomorrow – we have Aurors standing by, of course – and it would be the ideal opportunity. Unfortunately, if Severus is to attend said raid, someone would need to cover his classes, and as you are undoubtedly aware, there are few supply Potions masters on short supply. I was therefore hoping that-"

"We'd _love _to do it," Sirius said, grinning rather sadistically. "Potions professor for a day? I think it's the best present I've ever gotten."

"You will not be redecorating Severus' classroom," Dumbledore said sternly. "Nor will you be teaching the children to make any potions but the ones in their textbooks."

Sirius looked very put out, and glowered at the floor.

"However," he continued, "I am also aware that you two are not exceptionally… fond of Potions, and as such I am giving you permission to deviate from the lesson plan if you wish."

"Deviate?" James said curiously. "You mean… we can teach them whatever we want?"

"Hopefully something useful, my boy, but yes, you'll have a free rein," Dumbledore laughed. "Severus will hopefully return in a matter of days, and we can return to the usual arrangement. No harm, no foul, as the Muggles say."

James and Sirius exchanged elated looks. "We'd love to, sir."

.:oOo:.

The Gryffindor and Slytherin fifth years chattered quietly as the minute hand slowly approached the 2 on the Potions' dungeon clock. When it was a minute to 2 pm, all noise ceased. On the rare occasions that Snape wasn't already seated at the front of the class, waiting for the bell to ring, he inevitably came in right at the hour and deducted points from anyone so much as breathing too loudly.

When the class bell rang, however, Snape didn't come swooping into the class like an overgrown bat, scowl permanently ingrained on sallow features, hidden behind hopelessly greasy black hair. Harry nearly had a heart attack when the door opened, because Sirius and James swept through instead of Snape. The heart attack was less that his guardians had apparently murdered the Potions Master and taken over his job, but more that each was levitating behind them large boxes that rattled metallically with each step.

"Quiet bunch, aren't they?" James blinked as they proceeded up to the front of the room. Every eye was on them, wondering why they were there, and what had happened to their normal professor. "We didn't kill Snivellus, if that's what you're wondering."

"He was just feeling a little greasier than normal," Sirius grinned evilly. "So we sent him to take a swim… with the _fishes_." Every muggleborn sniggered quietly to themselves, while the purebloods exchanged bewildered looks.

"Now see here," Draco Malfoy announced, lounging regally in his seat. "Professor Snape would have told us if you were substituting for him! I'm afraid I just can't stay in this unsanctioned lesson a moment longer." He rose to his feet and made to leave.

"Since Auror Black and I know nothing about Potions," James announced, overriding the smirking blonde Slytherin, "we've decided to get you up to date on the current dangers that you might be faced with. And Mister Malfoy, do take your seat."

Malfoy continued packing his things.

"Two hundred points from Slytherin," Sirius trilled happily. The Slytherins gasped in horror, and Malfoy turned sheet white.

"You can't do that!"

"Probably not," Sirius shrugged. "But if you don't sit down, boy, I'll do a lot worse than take away points." Scowling darkly at the Auror, Malfoy flopped back into his chair and put on a sulky expression.

"Like I said," James continued as if nothing had happened, "Sirius and I are rubbish at Potions, so we're going to teach you about something a little more up our alley."

"Are we going to learn how to duel properly?" Ron asked eagerly.

"How about some new Quidditch moves?" Dean piped up. "I heard that you were a kick-arse Chaser, and Mr. Black wasn't half bad as a Beater!"

"Half bad?" Sirius demanded, insulted.

"Are we going to learn about the history of the Ministry of Magic?" Hermione said excitedly. Silence blanketed the room. "Well, they _do _work for the Ministry, and it _is _interesting," she muttered.

"We," James said loudly, reaching into one of the boxes and fumbling around, "are going to teach you about Muggle weapons." He pulled a sub machine gun from the box and waved it around happily. Every muggleborn in the room shrieked and ducked under their respective tables.

"That's dangerous!" Harry snapped. He was the only one who hadn't gone flying for cover, but he was itching to do so. "Stop waving that gun around! You could kill someone!"

"Nonsense," Sirius scoffed, pulling out a shot gun and twirling it in the air like a baton. Hermione let out a miserable moan from beside Harry, who clenched his wand tightly, ready to pull up a _Protego _if anything went wrong.

"This is a gun," James said, gesturing at the sub machine gun as if the students hadn't already figured it out. "It's like Avada Kedavra for Muggles, except it hurts a lot more, and it's much faster."

Malfoy, despite the guns being decidedly Muggle in nature, looked intrigued. "Are we going to get to use one of those things?" he asked gleefully.

"Not exactly," Sirius smirked. "The point of the lesson isn't to teach you how to use them. It's to teach you to avoid them. Only by understanding their awesome power can you gain true respect for them."

Hermione clapped a hand across her eyes. "They're going to fire them, aren't they?"

"I expect so," Harry said grimly.

James dropped the gun, pulled out his wand, and conjured up a man-sized dummy. He positioned it so that it was in plain view of everyone, then gestured for Sirius to take over.

"This is a shotgun," the Animagus said happily, flicking off the safety and moving the shot gun to his shoulder. "It lets out a spray of bullets that really, really hurt, so try not to get hit. I'll show you what I mean."

He pulled the trigger and recoiled back as the force of the gun blasted the dummy's head off. Taken aback, the class was shocked into silence. James laughed loudly and retrieved his own gun from the floor.

"This," he said, "is a sub machine gun. It… well, it fires bullets continuously one after the other, and although the aim isn't all that good, it's very difficult to miss from this distance."

James held the gun out in one hand, flipped the safety, and let loose a shower of bullets that tore ragged holes in the dummy's chest. Harry recognized the _rat-tat-tat _sound from he and Ginny's confrontation with the two Aurors several days before.

'You don't think they're…' he thought to Decimare. 'Nah.'

.:I don't think they're what?:. Decimare demanded. .:Firing machine guns off in the halls of a school? I wouldn't put it past them:.

'Why would they do that?' Harry wondered.

.:Maybe they're going to enchant the suits of armor to carry the guns, and fire at any Death Eaters that breach Hogwarts:. Decimare suggested sarcastically.

'You're right,' Harry relaxed. 'It was a stupid idea. Not even _they _would do something like that.'

"Ta da!" James said brightly. The class stared back at him, terrified out of their minds, and totally at a loss for words. "Well, don't just sit there," he frowned. "What have we learned?"

Lavender and Parvati fainted.

"Not quite what I was going for…" James blinked.

Hermione started to raise her hand, probably to tell them off, so Harry intercepted it along the way and raised his own instead. "If someone points a gun at you, don't do anything stupid," he suggested.

"Exactly," Sirius said happily. "So if I were, for example, to point this shot gun at you darling kiddies and tell you to cough up all your gold, what would you do?" Most of the class reached for their money bags. Sirius laughed delightedly. "Rich!"

"Shut up," James sighed, wrenching the gun from Sirius' grasp. "And put your galleons away," he snapped at the class. "The _actual _point of the lesson is to be very careful when faced with an unknown weapon, because you don't know what it's capable of doing to you."

Sirius nodded wisely. Harry suppressed a snort, because he knew that if his godfather were faced with an unknown weapon, he'd probably attack straight away without considering the consequences. Sirius was fun like that.

"Class dismissed," James concluded.

.:oOo:.

"So how did things go?" Dumbledore asked pleasantly that evening, after the day of classes had passed by. "I wonder… did you two notice that the majority of the students at dinner were rather… quiet and pale?"

"No idea why that'd be, sir," James replied promptly.

"Madam Pomfrey says that at least thirty children checked in throughout the day for nerve-calming potions. Several she forced to take naps, and they screamed in their sleep something about a 'shower of metal death'." He gave them another pleasant smile. "I don't suppose you could explain that to me?"

"Potions is a frightening subject, sir," Sirius said innocently.

"I'm sure it is," Dumbledore said with a slight chuckle. "Well, I'm sure that whatever lesson you boys taught them, they took it to heart."

"We hoped so," James agreed. "Good night, professor."

"Gentlemen." The Headmaster tipped his hat and glided from the room, like a very large, brightly robed, long-bearded swan.

James and Sirius exchanged bemused glances. "He _must _have known what we did," James said disbelievingly.

"Of course he did, and he obviously thinks it was a good idea," Sirius said dismissively.

"We held up our classes at gunpoint and fired off submachine guns indoors," James snapped. "There's no way he's alright with that."

"Maybe you two should have thought of that," Harry suggested, slipping through the door into their sitting room. "You prats scared my class half to death!"

"That was kind of the idea," Sirius shrugged, beckoning Harry to come join them by the blazing fire. Harry took a seat next to his godfather, who grinned wolfishly and tousled his spiky hair. "You did well," he praised. "Barely flinched. Not scared at all, I could tell."

"I thought the point was to make them scared of muggle guns?" James blinked.

"That's right."

"Okay then."

"Hermione's going spare," Harry informed them. "I had to stop her from marching straight here and giving you two a piece of her mind. She was pretty furious – something about you almost killing us all."

"That girl is a bad influence," Sirius pronounced grandly. "She is entirely too law abiding and safety conscious. Next you'll be telling me she advocates wearing hard hats at construction sites!"

Harry rolled his eyes and suppressed a groan. "I'm not even going to go there."

"So tell us _everything_," James prodded.

"Yes," Sirius agreed. "What about that Weasley girl? I hate to be the bad guy, Harry, but you've been dating for a few months now. Most couples are to the broom closet stage by then."

Harry frowned. "How do you know I haven't taken Ginny to a broom closet yet? Not to say that I haven't!" The truth was that he hadn't, but his guardians didn't need to know that. Ginny preferred the Astronomy tower, after all – said she liked to look at the stars in between passionate snogs.

Suddenly very suspicious, Harry turned a suspicious glare on his guardians. "You haven't been following me, have you?"

"Us?" Sirius gasped, the picture of innocence. "Say it isn't so!"

"We've done nothing of the sort," James protested indignantly. "The mere thought is too terrible to even consider!"

"I'll take that to mean you've been practically stalking me," Harry grumbled. "Or you've somehow rigged a muggle video camera to follow my every move." Sirius and James exchanged panicked looks. "It was just a joke, guys," Harry added slowly.

"We knew that," James said immediately.

"Ha ha!" Sirius added unconvincingly.

Harry watched them mistrustfully. "I'm never sure nowadays if you two really are up to something and are horrible at hiding it, or if you aren't up to anything at all, but are acting like you aren't but actually are just to throw me off."

James and Sirius took a minute to sort that one out.

"Okay, that's enough suspicion for now," James announced.

"I'll be as suspicious as I like!" Harry snapped.

"I'm your father, and I'm telling you to stop being suspicious!"

"Fine," Harry sulked. "I'm going to bed."

"Fine," Sirius retorted childishly. Godfather and godson glared at each other, before Harry turned and stomped out of the room. Sirius and James burst into laughter. "He's something else," Sirius wheezed.

"Hey," James said defensively, "if he's not clever enough to figure out what we're up to, we don't have to tell him anything."

"Aren't guardians supposed to be supportive and open and all that?" Sirius wondered.

James snorted. "Padfoot, this is Harry we're talking about. The kid who managed to find the secret chamber of Salazar Slytherin that has been lost for a _thousand years_. It'd be an insult to his intelligence if we told him all our plans without making him figure it out himself."

"Technically, Hermione did most of the finding of said Chamber," Sirius reminded him.

"Not important," James said dismissively. "We're betraying Harry's trust and keeping huge secrets from him, and that's final. Let's play some chess."

"I call white!"

.:oOo:.

Harry awoke next morning to the gentle rumbling of his roommates' snores, and fumbled around for his glasses. His wandering hands fell upon Decimare's ring, and as he pulled it on and grasped his glasses, Decimare's panicked voice filled his head.

.:Master, I believe we have a problem:.

Never having heard the snake spirit so agitated before, Harry immediately sat up and asked mentally, 'What is it? Is Umbridge up to something? Voldemort?'

.:You recall that I have been blocking the 'visions' that the Dark Lord feeds you from time to time?:. Decimare said slowly. .:I intercepted another one last night. Normally they're obviously fake, and I don't let them through, but this one…:.

'What happened?' Harry demanded.

.:In the vision, Peter Pettigrew was being held in the Department of Mysteries by Death Eaters:. Decimare said reluctantly. .:They were torturing him, and telling him that if the Potter brat – you, Master – didn't come and save him, they would kill him:.

Harry felt his heart stop. 'What about the shield? Merlin's shield, Decimare, was it there?'

.:I don't know:. Decimare said grimly. .:But by Lucius Malfoy's feet there was most definitely a shield-shaped object wrapped in burlap:.

'But it can't be real,' Harry protested. 'I gave Peter my invisibility cloak, so he would have been nearly impossible to find, and besides, he owled me only a few days ago!'

.:I don't know if it's real or not:. Decimare hissed, sounding very annoyed with himself. .:Such a situation never occurred to me before. I would advise you to forget everything I just told you, Master, but if Pettigrew really has been captured…:.

'Can't you check?' Harry asked. 'You're a magical sword, after all, you must have some way of-'

.:I have ready access to your mind, not the minds of others:.

'Then what do I do?' Harry said helplessly. 'It'd be incredibly stupid to go rushing off to save Peter… but if the Death Eaters really do have Merlin's shield… Wait. Why do they want me there?'

.:The room they were in is the Hall of Prophecies:. Decimare said grimly. .:Only the persons who the prophecy speaks about are able to access their particular memory orb. They undoubtedly wish to access a prophecy pertaining to you, and probably one which affects the Dark Lord as well:.

'Going would be playing right into their hands… but if Peter's really in danger…'

.:You should go to the Headmaster:. Decimare told him sternly. .:Tell Dumbledore everything you saw, tell your father and godfather everything you saw, and let them deal with it:.

Harry rolled his eyes. 'Yeah, that'll go over well. "Hey Dad, remember that murderous traitor who killed Mum fourteen years ago? He's in trouble, and you should probably go rescue him!" And Dumbledore won't even look at me – he's never going to believe my visions are true. Besides, telling them would mean also admitting I stole you from the Potter vault! I'd be disowned! Expelled!'

Decimare started to writhe uncomfortably as an enlightened expression dawned on Harry's features. .:Oh no, you are _not_:. the snake snapped. .:Master, I will not allow you under any circumstances to go after Pettigrew alone!:.

'I'm going,' he announced, clambering out of his bed and reaching for his clothes. 'And you can't stop me.'

.:You would be very surprised as to what I can and cannot do:. Decimare hissed darkly. .:Do not make me possess you, Master:.

Harry froze. 'You wouldn't dare.'

.:I'll do what I have to to keep you alive:. the snake said sternly.

'If I tell the Headmaster, he's going to try to take you away from me,' Harry said pointedly. 'He's going to think you're dark magic, and that you're possessing me!'

.:Then you'll just have to find a way to tell him about Pettigrew without involving me, won't you?:.

Harry furiously searched for a response, some reason to avoid confronting the man who'd been all but ignoring him the past few months… and came up blank. 'Fine,' he snapped. 'I'll get dressed and go tell Dumbledore. Are you happy now?'

.:Ecstatic:. Decimare drawled.


	39. The Hall of Prophecies

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except, of course, my darling Tristan.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Thirty-Nine – The Hall of Prophecies

'He's never going to believe me,' Harry grumbled as he hurried down the corridor towards the Headmaster's office. 'If I mention Pettigrew that is the one being held, Dumbledore'll wonder how I know that.'

.:Then don't mention Pettigrew:. Decimare snapped. .:Just tell the old fool that you had a vision, know that _someone _is being held in the Department of Mysteries, but that you don't know who they are, or what the Dark Lord is holding them for:.

'Yeah, because Voldemort is going to send me a vision in which I have _no idea _what's going on,' Harry scoffed. 'Here, Harry, look as I torture someone who you've never seen before! Doesn't that anger you and make you want to charge in recklessly to save his life? _That _makes sense.'

.:Even so, Dumbledore will be more concerned that Death Eaters are in the Ministry of Magic than he will be about the anonymity of your vision:. the snake spirit pointed out.

'Yes,' Harry huffed, racing around the corner towards the gargoyle perched at the end of the hall. 'And then he'll arrive with the whole Order, find them holding _Peter Pettigrew_, and probably blast everything there to smithereens, including Peter _and _the shield!'

.:That's ridiculous:. Decimare hissed. .:You can't destroy Merlin's shield:.

'And your concern for human life is touching,' Harry quipped. He skidded to a halt in front of the guardian gargoyle. "Bertie Botts."

The gargoyle blinked.

"Bertie Botts Beans!" Harry repeated impatiently. "I was in here just last week, and I _know _Dumbledore hasn't changed the password yet!"

No response.

Harry decided to give it one more try before he lost his temper and tried something foolish, like attacking the gargoyle. "Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans," he bit out. "Bertie Botts Jelly Beans. Jelly Bellies. Bert and Ernie. Jack and the Bean Stalk. Bloody hell, you daft git, _open up_!"

The gargoyle snorted and began picking at its teeth with one stony talon.

"Potter?"

Harry spun around, expecting to see the Headmaster smiling benignly at him in his grandfatherly way. Naturally, Argus Filch leered down at him with his bloodshot eyes, peering suspiciously between the irate student and the Headmaster's gargoyle. Mrs. Norris meowed evilly at the caretaker's feet.

Deciding to curse his bad luck later, Harry tried hopefully, "Sir, I'm looking for the Headmaster-"

"The Headmaster is gone," Filch snarled. "As you should be, Potter. Lurking around Dumbledore's office like this… one starts to wonder…"

"I was trying to _talk _to him," Harry snapped. "And what do you _mean_, he's gone? I saw him yesterday at dinner!" He checked his watch. "And it's like seven in the morning! Where would he go this early?"

Filch chortled at Harry's evident distress. "Today is the annual meeting with the Board of Education. All the teachers leave for the day to meet with the Board and explain how they are bringing knowledge and enlightenment to you sniveling little brats." The last three words were filled with such disdain that if Harry hadn't already been far too focused on the fact that every teacher in the school was _gone_, he would have snapped a harsh comeback at the unpleasant man.

Ducking his head in what barely passed as a gesture of respect, Harry turned on his heel and raced off down a side corridor to escape the disgruntled caretaker. As soon as Filch's footsteps moved away, Harry let out a groan of complete misery.

'This is just _typical_,' he almost cried. 'Why is it that on the _only _day I actually need authority figures, they skip out on me!'

.:Bad karma:. Decimare hypothesized. .:Perhaps you were a thief or lawbreaker in your last life:.

Harry snorted. 'I'm already a thief and lawbreaker in _this _life. What do I do now?'

.:Your father:. Decimare proclaimed.

'He's even less likely to want to help Pettigrew.'

Decimare rolled his tiny ebony eyes. .:We've been over this. Don't tell him who the Dark Lord captured:.

Harry rolled his eyes. 'You're not getting it, Decimare. Dumbledore will stun Pettigrew on sight. Dad will _murder_ him, as will Sirius, Remus, and any other adult who knew Peter and isn't as forgiving as the Headmaster. I've got to save him, and I can't wait around for the teachers to get back! Voldemort could be torturing Peter as we speak!'

.:Except the Dark Lord can't be:. Decimare frowned, .:because if he were in the Department of Mysteries, he wouldn't need you there to get a prophecy for him. Master… you _are _still thinking rationally, yes?:.

'I'm perfectly rational,' Harry snapped. 'I'll just have to go rescue Pettigrew by myself.'

.:Because clearly, if the Death Eaters kidnapped Pettigrew and the shield, they would risk you getting back both the man and the shield, just so they could acquire a stupid prophecy:. Decimare said dryly.

'Exactly!' Harry agreed, pleased the snake spirit finally saw things his way.

.:That was sarcasm, Master!:.

'I'll still need help,' Harry mused, ignoring the snake completely. 'No teachers… Dad and Sirius not even in the running…'

Decimare huffed in disgust. .:Why don't you drag your pathetic little friends into this insane plot as well? That would just sum up your idiocy nicely, wouldn't you say?:.

Harry shook his head, brushing off the insult after months of practice. It was rather ironic that this was the _one_ instance in which Harry should have actually listened to his sword. 'Listen, Decimare, I can't bring Ron and Hermione along, they'll get hurt and I'd never forgive myself, and then-'

"… but he's just standing there…"

Spinning around, Harry found Ginny, Hermione, and Ron staring at him with puzzled expressions on their faces. "Which probably means he's talking to his… er… sword," Hermione told Ron, who'd so cleverly observed that his friend was standing motionless in the middle of a deserted hallway.

"Decimare," Ginny added helpfully. "He does that from time to time."

"And here I'd thought he was slowly going crackers," Ron sniggered.

"You seem agitated," Hermione observed.

Harry ran a hand nervously through his hair. "Er… have I told you guys about the shield yet?"

His friends exchanged confused looks. "Not that I know of," Ginny shrugged. Then she gave Harry a suspicious look. "Why do I get the feeling this will lead to nothing good?"

"Because with us, it always does," Ron smirked.

"Does it have something to do with that sword of yours?" Hermione demanded.

.:I like her:. Decimare announced. .:Explain the entire situation to this moderately intelligent young woman, Master. Perhaps she'll have the sense to see that this entire plot stinks of treachery:.

Harry ignored him; he was in hero mode now, and didn't have time for the snake's comments. Taking a deep breath, Harry told them in a rush the events that had transpired regarding Pettigrew and Merlin's shield. His defection, the shield's awesome power, and most importantly, the fact that no one else did know, or could know, about the shield's existence.

The trio gaped at their ringleader with identical expressions of shocked disbelief. Once the ability of speech returned to their boggled minds, they each expressed their slightly different takes on the situation.

"What happened to no more secrets?" Ginny, of course, although she was, much to Harry's relief, so used to his secrets by now that she seemed more amused than irritated.

Ron took the distrusting route. "So Pettigrew claims he's switched sides, and you _believe _him? Bloody hell, mate!"

Hermione simply frowned, aware that her friend wouldn't have told them these things unless there was a reason behind it. "So Pettigrew took the shield and is on the run with your invisibility cloak. You wouldn't be telling us this unless something went horribly wrong, Harry."

So Harry told them the rest. They were scowling by the end of it, and unsurprisingly so. The teachers had picked a rather inconvenient time to vanish, after all. Not to mention that it was up to them to save the day. Again.

"You're crazy if you think the four of us can take on a dozen Death Eaters," Hermione said finally.

"Of course we can't," Harry corrected. "Because you aren't coming. It's too dangerous."

.:Heroes and their self-righteousness:. Decimare hissed in disgust. .:And people wonder why we Slytherin types stay as far away from heroics as possible:.

It wasn't like Harry expected his argument to work; every adventure he tried to keep them safe, and every time they came along anyway. Still, it felt comforting to go through the regular routine before they went off to risk their lives in an epic duel to the death over a man three of them still hated, and a shield they all wished would just disappear.

"If it's too dangerous for us, it's too dangerous for you," Ginny pronounced.

"We're coming," Ron declared. "Whether you let us or not."

Harry couldn't help but grin. "Thanks, mate."

"We'll need transportation," Hermione reminded them, ever the practical one.

"Brooms," Ginny offered.

"I can't fly," Hermione disagreed. "We could try Floo, but I don't think any of us have a ready supply… not to mention it's the middle of the day, and Harry would attract a lot of attention popping out of one of the fireplaces in the middle of the Ministry of Magic."

"We could contact the Aurors!" Ron shouted suddenly. "They could take on the Death Eaters easily!"

"Except they're under Fudge's thumb," Harry sighed.

"We've handled Death Eaters before," Ginny said cheerfully. "Let's stick a hat on Harry's head, grab some Floo powder from Sirius and Mr. Potter's rooms, and get going!"

"This is a bad idea," Hermione predicted.

"We have to save Pettigrew," Harry told her firmly. "Even if the Death Eaters do have the shield, he's on our side now, and we've got to help him. Are you coming?" Hermione was clearly against the entire thing, but nodded her head anyway.

"Let's go!" Ron bellowed, and they were off. For three steps, that is, until they crashed head over heels into two smaller bodies that had appeared out of nowhere. Ron, Hermione, and Ginny scrambled up and away from their apparent attackers, but Harry just slapped a hand to his forehead and groaned.

"Why did you just—Tristan!" Ron yelped.

"Brilliant," Harry muttered. "Absolutely bloody brilliant. This is _just _what I need."

The bright-eyed Hufflepuff boy flashed his attackees a winning smile. Luna Lovegood's scraggly blonde head popped up behind his, and she sent a dreamy look skywards, utterly unconcerned with the events taking place in front of her.

"_Why _are you here?" Harry asked tiredly.

"The slippery serpent slithers stealthily, sneaking, sneaking, sneaking," Tristan told them mysteriously.

"Which we will interpret to mean as you were eavesdropping on our conversation, and now know all about Peter Pettigrew, Merlin's Shield, and the Department of Mysteries crisis," Harry sighed.

"Orange," Tristan admitted.

"Come on, then," Harry said with a roll of his eyes.

"Harry!" Hermione shrieked, scandalized. "You aren't seriously considering bringing a _first year _with us!"

Harry snorted. "He'll just babble away at the Death Eaters until they're so frustrated that they'll beat themselves to death with their own wands."

"Oy! We're coming too!"

Ginny and Ron leapt back as Fred and George flung themselves dramatically from behind a nearby tapestry. Harry growled a mumbled curse and shut his eyes, hoping beyond hope that everyone would disappear so he and Decimare could go save Pettigrew in peace. No such luck.

"Anyone else want to come?" Harry said loudly, in case someone else happened to be hiding out nearby and eavesdropping on them. He turned to his motley crew. "If you need to go to the bathroom, do it now." The Weasleys snickered in response.

"We need Floo powder," Hermione reminded him.

Luna raised a wavering hand in the air. "The snorkacks got most of mine, but I should have enough left for all of us." She pulled a satchel out from her robes, as if she carried around the Floo powder at all times. Sighing deeply, Harry snatched the powder and cleared his throat once more.

"This is your last chance," he told them sternly. "We are going into a very dangerous situation, and you could all be hurt, or worse, if you don't keep your wits about you."

.:Don't forget to remind them that they're still underaged students, and haven't a hope of taking on the Death Eaters:. Decimare said sarcastically. .:And you should probably have them write their wills as well, Master. Don't forget to include an apology in yours to me. When this all goes horribly wrong, don't think I'm above saying that I told you so:.

"To the Great Hall," Harry announced. "Let's go save Pettigrew."

Complete and utter silence blanketed the corridor.

Harry rolled his eyes. "You all hate him, I get it. Fine. Let's go save Merlin's shield."

His friends, allies, and irritating stalkers cheered wildly. Wildly, as in, softly, as one never knew if Dolores Umbridge was lurking about, ready to prey on unsuspecting students. With both pride and misery fighting for control of his mind, Harry led his ragtag army towards the Great Hall.

.:oOo:.

"Hey Prongs, come and see this!"

James hurried over to the Sentinel monitor bank to see what had agitated his partner in crime so. Sirius gestured to the screen that showed the Entrance Hall, and James picked out the figures of Harry and a group of his friends (and also that freakish Hufflepuff boy) heading for the Great Hall.

"That _is _odd," James mused. "It's the weekend, and lunch isn't for a few hours. What are they planning?"

"A prank?" Sirius suggested. "We've been training the Weasley twins well – maybe they've come up with a killer of a prank for lunch."

"It seems likely," James agreed. The students disappeared from view, and James and Sirius reoriented themselves on one of the monitors that showed the Great Hall. They seemed to be headed for the fireplace. Sirius and James exchanged confused looks.

"They _can't _be sneaking out," James protested in disbelief. "After what happened to Harry last time he snuck off, you'd think he'd know better!"

Sirius snorted. "Like hell. Your son is a smart kid, Prongs, but once he gets it in his head to something, the rules be damned." He did a double take. "They _are _sneaking out! Look! That blonde girl is throwing Floo powder in the fire!"

James stood abruptly. Then he sank back into his chair, looking incredibly torn. Sirius stifled a sigh as he watched the turmoil rage across James' conflicted face. "What now, Prongs?"

"It's just…" James trailed off uncertainly, a rare occurrence for him. "They're in all likelihood going to Diagon Alley for a bit of fun. Harry deserves to relax once in a while, and I don't want to be the one to stop him from doing so."

"I hate to be the voice of reason," Sirius said darkly, "but what if they're off to do something stupid and dangerous? I wouldn't put it past them."

James scoffed. "Don't be stupid, Padfoot, it's only January." Sirius's expression brightened, and he gave a bark of laughter. After all, Harry only got into major trouble once a year, and that was always in June. What were the chances that he would change his habits so suddenly?

"We should at least tell Dumbledore," James finally said. "He's the Headmaster, but he knows as well as we do that Harry needs some time off. He'll probably be fine with the whole thing; maybe even cover for them!"

"Except Dumbledore's gone," Sirius reminded him. "As are all the teachers. It's their annual meeting with the Board, remember?"

Both men leapt to their feet, horrified expressions on their faces.

"January be damned!" Sirius growled. "June's come early this year!"

James eyed the monitor bank frantically. Only Harry and Hermione were left, the rest sucked through the fireplace to destinations unknown. "Teachers gone, students mysteriously sneaking out in the early hours of the morning… Sirius, we _have _to follow them! There's no telling what kind of trouble they're headed for!"

"Grab your wand and we're gone," Sirius snapped. James, wand already in hand, reached under the desk and pulled out a sub-machine gun. Sirius gave him a confused look, and James frowned darkly.

"If my suspicions are correct, I'm afraid we're going to need a bit more firepower."

"You think they're going up against Death Eaters?"

"Yes."

Sirius smiled coldly. "Give me one as well."

.:oOo:.

When Harry and Hermione tumbled out of the fireplace, they were quickly pulled to their feet by their friends' waiting hands. Hastily dusting himself off, Harry repositioned his hat to hide his scar, and set off at a brisk stride towards the lifts. As they followed behind him in a cluster (Harry would have preferred something more tactically sound, but they were after all trying to blend in with the crowd), Harry was amazed that none of the passerbys seemed to notice the group of schoolchildren walking through the Ministry.

.:You might have changed out of your school robes first:. Decimare huffed in disgust. .:Honestly, Master, it would have taken all of two minutes, and you wouldn't be making such a spectacle of yourself if you had:.

'We've got bigger problems,' Harry thought unhappily.

"Harry, the wand check!" Ginny whispered as they approached the golden gates. "I thought we were trying to _not _be recognized!"

Harry mulled over the problem, rethought it again, and hit upon a solution. "Gin, as the Boy Who Lived, I hereby authorize you to Confund that man."

Ginny gaped at him. "What?"

Harry gave her an impish grin that matched the one she often gave him. "You heard me."

A devilish smirk grew on her freckled face, and Ginny swept in front of Harry as they neared the wand check desk. The man raised his head at their approach and opened his mouth to speak. Ginny flicked her wand and whispered _Confundus_. They slipped by without notice as the man stared dreamily at his desk in a rather Luna-esque manner and began conversing with his coffee mug.

"Ginny!" Hermione whispered, horrified. "You just Confunded a Ministry official!"

Ginny smiled cheekily. "Yes, Hermione, yes I did. And boy did it feel _good_."

Harry laughed quietly as they boarded an empty lift and began their descent to the lower reaches of the Ministry of Magic. As silence filled the lift, Harry found the lack of noise rather suspicious, considering who his fellow rescuers were.

"Why is nobody talking?" he demanded suddenly. "Luna, you and Tristan are always babbling about something." He turned to the twins. "And you two have barely spoken! What's going on?"

"The purple elephant has ears of cabbage!" Tristan protested innocently.

"Right," Harry said with a roll of his eyes. "And you two?"

Fred and George exchanged a look that was very mysterious, even for them. "Just preparing ourselves for the upcoming battle," Fred said with a wave of his hand. "Nothing to be concerned about, old chum."

"Yeah," Harry frowned, eyeing the pair suspiciously. "I'll believe that. When pigs fly!"

"Cabbages," Tristan corrected immediately. "When _cabbages_ fly."

"What he said," Harry sighed.

.:oOo:.

They reached the mysterious black door of the Department of Mysteries without too much difficulty, save for that Luna claimed to have seen a particularly rare species of flesh-burning wall fungus, and just had to examine more closely. After dragging their odd acquaintance from the perfectly normal wall, they converged around the door and prepared themselves for battle.

"Now or never," Ron finally said, and pushed open the door. It swung smoothly open, and the rescue party spilled into the eerie black room, lit with blue torches and containing multiple doors identical to the one they'd just come through.

.:You may not want to close the door:. Decimare suggested, irritated that his Master was completely ignoring him. .:Seeing as all these doors are identical, and… never mind:.

When his Master survived all this nonsense and was finally listening to him again, Decimare would take a good deal of enjoyment in scolding the boy for his foolish actions.

As soon as the door swung shut behind them, the walls began to spin. Their sight faded to a black and blue blur as the doors whipped around them, both disorienting them and making them slightly nauseous in the process.

"Pretty colors," Luna said happily. "If only I had an easel and some paint…"

Tristan moved to conjure them for her, or perhaps simply to scratch his head, but Harry quickly stopped the boy before his magic use gave away their position. Harry didn't know if the Death Eaters could detect their magic, but he figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Which way now?" Ginny asked slowly, eyeing the doors in turn but unable to tell one from the other.

"We could just go through them until we find the right one," Ron suggested.

"Don't be ridiculous," Hermione snapped. "We need to go about this logically. Now, all we need to do is find the door that leads to the room Harry saw in his vision, and we'll find Pettigrew. And for that to happen…" she trailed off with an embarrassed look.

"We'll just go through the doors until we find the right one," Ron concluded smugly.

.:Perhaps you should split up, to cover more ground:. Decimare hissed dryly.

"Good idea," Harry said. "Split into pairs, people, so we can find Pettigrew faster!"

.:You imbecile!:. Decimare raged in his Master's mind. .:I was being sarcastic! Splitting up when you're already outnumbered is the most moronic thing you could _possibly _do right now!:.

Harry was too busy tuning him out to listen.

.:I give up:. the snake spirit huffed. .:You clearly have a habit of disregarding the wisdom of your elders when in a life-threatening situation. Tell me when you feel like listening again:.

After a few minutes of searching, they found it. Ginny and Hermione raced back into the main room and quickly announced their discovery. "It's past this room," Ginny explained as they stepped into a room filled with sparkling hourglasses of every size and description. "Hermione thinks these are time turners."

The group paused for a moment as they took in the mind-boggling room before them. _Hermione used a tiny time turner to go back hours at a time, _Harry thought. _That one in the corner is taller than I am – it could probably go back years!_

"Amoeba," Tristan reminded them.

"Yes," Hermione agreed, forcefully pulling herself away from examining the monstrous time turner. "Yes, the Hall of Prophecies is just through that door. Come on, we still need to find Pettigrew, and from what Ginny and I saw, the Hall is positively massive."

The group flocked to the door, but Harry hung back as they passed into the adjoining Hall and spread out to search. He'd noticed that the Weasley twins weren't part of the pack, and glanced back into the room to see if they'd heard Hermione's words. The room was empty. Harry did a double take, before moving away from the door to scrutinize the room more closely.

"Fred!" he called softly. "George! Where are you? Come on, we don't have time for hide and seek!"

The twins emerged from behind the monstrous hourglass, George shoving something into his robe pocket. Harry was about to inquire, but realized that the rest of the group was already in the Hall, and decided to wait till later. "Come on," he repeated urgently, "we have to hurry." Bobbing their heads, the twins followed obediently after Harry.

If he had looked back once more, he would have caught the determined look that passed between the two brothers. By the time he actually did, Fred and George were back to their usual cheerful selves, and Harry's suspicions dissipated as he returned his attention to their task.

By this time Hermione had puzzled out where Pettigrew was supposedly located, and the group took off at a run, albeit as silently as possible. "_Silencio!" _Harry intoned for good measure, hoping that the spell would give them an advantage when they came upon the Death Eaters holding Pettigrew hostage.

Hermione, leading the way, skittered to a stop and sent Harry a thumbs up. Harry nodded his understanding. Pulling out his wand, he spelt out words in the air with magic.

_This is it. Stun DEs. Be careful. Watch your backs. There might be more._

When everyone had nodded, Harry held up three fingers. _Three… two… one…_

The octet burst into the aisle. Which, of course, was completely empty.

"I don't understand," Harry said slowly. "This is where he was. This is where they were holding Pettigrew! Why isn't he here?"

"I don't know," Hermione said slowly, her eyes glazing over as her brilliant mind contemplated the matter. "Harry, you've been duped. There's no other explanation. The vision was false, and Pettigrew was never here."

"Harry, look at this!" Ron suddenly called. He and Ginny were gazing curiously at one of the objects on the shelves that the aisles were comprised of. It was a curiously glowing orb that Harry immediately recognized as a memory orb. He only had to read the first word to realize what it was. _Prophecy…_

"This is it," he said softly, pushing past the youngest Weasleys to get a better view of the shelf. "This is the prophecy about Voldemort and I that Dumbledore won't tell me about."

Hermione touched his shoulder tentatively. "Maybe you shouldn't touch it, Harry."

Harry turned a frown on his friend. "Why not? It's mine, isn't it?"

"It's in the _Department of Mysteries_," Hermione pressed. "It must be dangerous, or they wouldn't keep it down here!"

"It's a memory orb," Harry snapped, hand drifting toward the orb. "How dangerous could it possibly be?"

"You said that You-Know-Who was trying to lure you here, to get that prophecy!" Hermione shrieked. "Harry, you're playing right into his hands!"

"I don't care," Harry said, feeling reckless. The past few months had been an endless stream of people telling him what to do – his guardians, his teachers, his _sword_. Harry was going to take charge of his own life one way or another, and consequences be damned.

He pulled the orb off the shelf.

Slow, mocking clapping sounded from behind them.

"Very good, Mister Potter," Lucius Malfoy drawled, stepping out from the shadows along with at least ten Death Eaters. "Now hand over the prophecy and I'll let your friends go."

Harry froze, one hand clenched tightly around the glowing sphere, while his friends let out gasps of surprise. All his friends, that was, save two.

"This must be it," Fred said suddenly. All eyes swiveled to the pair of redheads, who looked not scared, but resigned. "The moment they told us about."

"Seems we were right," George agreed solemnly.

"Right about what, boy?" Malfoy snarled.

Before the imposing Death Eater could so much as blink, Fred and George simultaneously cast _Accio_, wrenching the prophecy orb from Harry's hand. Already feeling like an idiot for walking into the trap, Harry watched helplessly as the orb soared into Fred's waiting hands.

"Give that here right now!" one of Malfoy's companions shouted, and Harry realized that it was a female voice – undoubtedly Bellatrix Lestrange, the woman who had helped torture Neville's parents.

To Harry's horror, the twins exchanged intrigued looks. Ignoring the outraged gasps of his siblings, Fred said slowly, "Exactly how valuable is this prophecy?"

"This isn't a game, child," Malfoy said. "Don't try to stall me; it won't work."

"We aren't Harry Potter," George announced coldly. "We aren't as foolish as him, and we also aren't as self-sacrificing. Why don't you answer the question, and maybe we can work out some kind of deal."

Bellatrix was clearly on the verge of cursing the insolent twins, but Malfoy seemed almost… amused.

"Don't give it to him!" Harry shouted desperately. "Fred, George, please!"

"You're right, that orb _is _very valuable," Malfoy said, talking over Harry as he stepped closer. "You are smart boys, to realize something of worth when you see it. Why don't you give it to me, and we'll let _everyone _go." He leaned towards them. "And I will make it financially worth your while, let me assure you."

"He's lying!" Harry cried. "He'll stab you in the back!"

"Oh, do shut up, Potter," Malfoy hissed. "Now, boys, just hand the orb to me, and we'll let all your friends go…"

The Weasley twins glanced at each other once more. Finally, Fred stepped forward, orb in hand, and held it outstretched toward the blond Death Eater.

"Finally," Malfoy murmured, reaching out for the orb. "The Dark Lord will praise your name for an eternity, boys… _no_!"

As Malfoy reached the orb, George gave a nasty grin and fired a powerful blasting hex at his twin's hand.

The orb shattered into a thousand glistening pieces.

"Oops," the twins chorused.

.:oOo:.


	40. Dimensional Jaunts

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except, of course, my darling Tristan.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Forty – Dimensional Jaunts

"Noooooooooo!" Bellatrix Lestrange shrieked as the glistening remains of the memory orb sprinkled to the floor like confetti. "_Crucio_!"

Harry and Co. dived to either side as the torture curse surged past them. "RUN!" Harry bellowed, seizing Ginny and Luna, who were closest to him, and propelling them down the aisle.

Leaping to his feet, then promptly ducking again to avoid three stunners from the irate Death Eaters, Harry threw up a shield spell and raced after the two girls. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hermione, Tristan, and Ron blasting apart a shelf and leaping through the rubble to safety. The twins were nowhere to be seen.

.:Left:. Decimare snapped sharply in Harry's mind, and he quickly dodged left to avoid another volley of curses.

"Mulciber, Avery, with me!" Malfoy screamed furiously. "Bella, you and Macnair follow the Weasley boy and the Mudblood. Everyone else, _find those twins_!"

"Harry!" Ginny panted as he skidded around the end of the shelf, nearly running into the two girls. "Which way?"

The bookshelf they were hiding behind went up in flames. "I don't know!" Harry cried.

.:Right:. Decimare sighed.

"Right!" he bellowed, waiting until the girls were clear of the burning shelf before chasing after them.

"_Crucio!_" Malfoy bellowed, striking Ginny in the back. She seized up and started to fall, but Harry grabbed her as he ran past, hoisting her with some difficulty over his shoulder as he fired a wild stunner back.

"Luna!" Harry snapped. "Some help, please!"

The blonde girl, who'd been more drifting down the hall than sprinting (yet somehow managing to move as fast as Harry), obligingly retrieved her wand from behind her ear and swished into dreamily through the air.

"Anti-gravity mist!" one of Malfoy's companions grunted. He and Malfoy hurled themselves past the sparkling pink mist, but the third Death Eater didn't respond in time and skidded to a halt within the cloud, staring around blearily as he was caught in the enchantment.

"Idiot!" Malfoy scowled. He skidded to a stop and cast a Concussion hex at the entrapped Death Eater, who was hurled from the mist none too gently. By the time he'd turned around, Harry and the girls had gained precious seconds. Malfoy cursed and chased after them.

.:oOo:.

"Through here!" Hermione declared, puffing her way up another flight of stairs. "Really," she muttered, "this is the twelfth flight now, I don't how they fit this many staircases under the Ministry. There shouldn't be room for even a second level…"

"Stop analyzing and keep running!" Ron scolded, loping along beside her, keeping pace easily thanks to his long legs. Tristan huffed along behind them, his shorter legs barely managing the relatively slow pace Hermione had set.

"Where are we?" Ron demanded. "We haven't been going in circles, have we?"

"Of course not," Hermione said indignantly, stopping before a massive door and drawing her wand. "We've been going in… well, circles, yes, but I think that we're closer to the entrance than when we started."

"Except we're twelve flights up!" Ron shouted.

There was a loud banging from somewhere two floors below them.

"Artichokes and octopi," Tristan warned.

"They're almost here," Ron agreed. "Through the door? Do you have a key?"

Hermione smiled grimly. "We aren't in school anymore, Ronald. In the real world, if you don't have a key, you make do without one. Stand back."

"What do you mean, stand back?" Ron stammered as Tristan unceremoniously hauled him away from the huge stone door. "Hermione, what are you-"

_BOOM_

Pleased with her work, Hermione stuck her smoking wand in her pocket and sprinted through the newly-created opening. Ron gaped in astonishment.

"Remind me not to get that one mad."

"Orange," Tristan agreed fervently.

.:oOo:.

"You look a little tense, brother mine," Fred observed airily as he and his twin brother hurtled down the corridor that ran down the middle of the Hall of Prophecies.

"Not at all," George protested, skipping nimbly aside to dodge the curses constantly flying their way from their pursuers. "How many are there now?"

Fred glanced behind, freckled brow furrowing slightly as he took in the numbers. "Five, maybe six. Not good odds for us, Gred."

"No indeed, Forge," George grinned. "Shall we, then?"

Still running down the endless corridor, Fred thrust a hand into his pocket and pulled out what looked very much like a time turner, except it was considerably larger than the one Hermione had once used, and looked a great deal more powerful as well.

Wrapping the chain around his left hand, he tossed the time turner to his twin, who caught it effortlessly. George nodded.

Roaring wildly, Fred leapt at his brother and propelled him into one of the aisles. As the Death Eaters tore up the corridor towards their rather dismal hiding place, George quickly fiddled with the fist-sized hourglass.

"Hurry," Fred urged as the black figures grew alarmingly near. "_George_-"

"Ready, Fred?"

Fred clasped a hand over George's, which was wrapped around the time turner.

"Ready, George."

They cracked identical grins.

"Let's change history."

There was a flash of light, and they were gone.

Approximately 2000 meters away, give or take, James and Sirius burst through one of the Ministry fireplaces, with wands in hands, sub machine guns strapped to backs, and very, very deadly expressions on their faces.

Several witches shrieked and leapt backwards as the two men in full Auror battle gear shoved through the crowd, bent on getting to their destination as quickly as humanly possible. When that wasn't fast enough, Sirius used his wand to fling the nearest six people into the surrounding crowd. After that the wizards and witches parted like the Red Sea as the two Aurors sped towards the golden gates.

As they neared the wand-check station, James was fully prepared to curse anyone who tried to get in his way, but he needn't have bothered. The wand-checker was still firmly out of it, sprawled on top of his desk trying to count the golden symbols scrolling across the blue ceiling overhead.

"Confundus," Sirius said as they hurried to the elevators. "Harry?"

"Probably," James agreed, slamming his hand against the lift panel. As if sensing his hurry, one of the golden contraptions sped into place and opened its doors to the two men. "They _must _be in the Department of Mysteries. Where else would Harry go?"

"If he _is _there," Sirius said darkly, "then he's probably under attack as we speak. If only it hadn't taken so long to track where they went…"

"I'm going to write a nasty letter to the Prophet about the Floo system if we get Harry out of this alive," James promised grimly. "You really think Harry found out about the prophecy?"

"Why else would he come here?" Sirius demanded. "For all we know, he's known about it for ages, and was just waiting for Dumbledore to skip town so he could go after it himself."

"He could have just _asked _us about it," James glowered.

"He probably assumed we didn't know any more than he did," Sirius pointed out. "Stop beating yourself up, Prongs, this isn't your fault."

"I know that," James snapped. "I just wish my son weren't so goddamned headstrong! If he wanted to sneak into the Ministry, all he had to do was tell us! We would have helped him!"

"Speculate later," Sirius told him firmly. "For now, let's just kill anything with a mask that moves."

"I can handle that," James agreed.

"Good," Sirius said, "because we're here."

.:oOo:.

After several tense minutes of wild dodging, frantic counter curses, and increasingly weakened shield spells, the battered and beaten Hogwarts students (sans Fred and George) converged together in a large, amphitheatre-esque room.

"Where are yours?" Harry bellowed as Ron, Hermione, and Tristan raced down the steps to them. Behind him, an odd, veiled archway squatted menacingly in the dark room, and if Harry weren't terrified for his life, he'd have been unable to resist taking a closer look.

"We lost one a few halls back," Ron panted, wand held tightly in hand as he scanned the entrance through which they'd come. "But we've got two more on our tail, and they hurt Hermione pretty badly."

The brunette was clutching her arm at an odd angle, and Harry was pretty sure her sleeve hadn't been red the last time he saw her. "We've got two as well," he said quickly. "Tristan, go lock as many of the doors to this room as you can." As he glanced around at the multiple entrances, he realized they were in a room that looked a great deal like the one he'd been brought to for the Wizengamot trial.

"Orange," Tristan saluted sharply, racing off to do as he was told. Ron stared after him uncertainly.

"I'll go help him…"

"You need to help Ginny," Harry told him firmly, helping the injured girl to her feet and handing her to Ron. "She was hit by the Cruciatus at least twice, and it didn't help that she smashed into a column shoving Luna out of the path of another one."

Ron clearly wanted to berate his best friend for not protecting his baby sister, but said baby sister was distinctly worse for the wear, so he settled for tearing off a piece of his shirt to wrap around her bleeding, possibly broken ankle. Ginny moaned in pain and bit out very creative curses through gritted teeth.

Hermione was holding her wand awkwardly in her wrong hand, but seemed determined to help just the same. "Harry, Tristan's locking spells won't hold out a second against-"

"Tristan somehow has the ability to get into the Chamber of Secrets all by himself," Harry said shortly. "I'm going on the assumption that he knows how to cast a competent locking spell as well."

His brunette friend didn't look pleased, but then, it's difficult to look pleased when one's arm is broken. "Harry…"

"Hermione, don't…" Harry said wearily. "You can yell at me after."

"No, I can't," she countered. "We're going to have this out right here and now."

"Hermione…"

"Listen," she snarled, running over his feeble attempts at staying on task. "I don't know what's been going on with you these last few months, but I've _had _it. You lie, you sneak off, you keep secrets, and look what's come of it!"

"This is _not _the time, Hermione!"

"You're going to listen anyway!" she all but growled.

"Look, I'm sorry!" Harry snapped. "You don't understand, Hermione, I had to lie to you! If I'd told you about Decimare sooner, you would have tried to take him away!"

"OF COURSE I WOULD HAVE!" Hermione shrieked. Ron and Ginny blanched at the brunette's fury and retreated back a few paces. "THAT SWORD IS EVIL, HARRY JAMES POTTER! IT WAS FORGED BY SALAZAR SLYTHERIN, AND IT'S BEEN POISONING YOUR MIND FOR MONTHS, AND YOU REFUSE TO SEE THAT!"

"He's not evil!" Harry shouted back. "I'm sorry that I dragged you into this, Hermione, I know it was wrong, but this just proves that I shouldn't have told you lot anything in the first place! I thought Pettigrew was in trouble, and I risked everything to help him. I _know _you don't understand that, Hermione, but I _know _that he's changed!"

"Well, he wasn't even here, was he?" she said acerbically. "You-Know-Who sets you a trap, and you walk into it like a-"

"Like a what?" Harry challenged. His eyes darkened as the accusations washed over him, and his fist clenched on his wand.

"Like a stupid, spoiled child!" Hermione cried. "You never stop to think, stop to consider the consequences Harry, and now your friends are suffering for it!"

Harry was stricken by her words. _I never meant to hurt them, _he thought earnestly to himself, _I just wanted to… _Just wanted to what? He could have gone to Sirius and James at any time. He could have called for help – hell, he could have told the Headmaster about Pettigrew the instant he got back from their meeting in the cave.

_When did things get so out of hand? _Harry wondered, horror washing over him. _I was so worried about what my father, my godfather, would think if they knew I'd betrayed them by stealing Decimare… _Comprehension dawned, and Harry realized exactly what he had to do.

"You're right," he told the steaming brunette firmly. "You're right. About everything."

Hermione looked completely taken aback. She clearly hadn't expected him to give in so readily.

"I just got my father back," he told her seriously, "and my life was finally starting to look up. Then I stole Decimare on a whim, and although I didn't understand it until now, I've been feeling guilty ever since."

"You thought your father would hate you if he knew you violated his trust so completely, stealing from him," Hermione said quietly. "He wouldn't, Harry, you know that."

"I don't think I do," Harry said slowly.

"It's that sword," Hermione told him. "Harry, you've been acting strangely ever since you got it."

"I know it seems that way," he said quickly, "but it isn't. Decimare… opened a lot of doors that I don't think I was ready to go through. But _I _was the one who took him, _I _was the one who kept everyone in the dark, and…"

Hermione, as well as Ron, Ginny, and Luna, who had all abandoned their activities to take in the dramatic confrontation, waited patiently for their friend to finish. Harry realized that as angry as they were with him, they trusted him still, because they were his friends. He only wished he'd done them the same courtesy many months ago.

"I understand now," he said finally. "I thought I could take care of myself, that I was strong enough to handle anything thrown my way. I was wrong. I…"

"We forgive you," Hermione said tremulously. "Oh, Harry, you can be so _stupid _sometimes!"

"I'm working on it," he said with a small grin. He was delighted when his friend tentatively returned it. Turning to Ron and Ginny, he waited hopefully for some sign that they forgave him for being a blockheaded idiot, and found them struggling to suppress their smiles.

"Stop laughing," he grumbled.

"Sorry mate," Ron sniggered, "but seeing Hermione laying into the big strong Boy-Who-Lived like that is something I'm not forgetting too soon."

And despite the fact that they were battle-weary, bloodstained, and about to be attacked by a swarm of Death Eaters in what very well might be their last stand, Ron, Hermione, and Harry burst into laughter. Past transgressions weren't forgotten, but the rift between Gryffindor's Golden Trio was starting to mend, and that was enough to brighten anyone's day.

"Octupi have no nostrils!" Tristan suddenly called from the top of the room. "Periwinkle! Periwinkle!"

The cheerful mood faded as abruptly as it had come.

"They're coming!" Harry bellowed. He gazed around at his weary, defeated crew. They'd survived this long, but didn't stand a chance against so many Death Eaters, not injured as they were.

Decimare suddenly hissed loudly in his mind. .:Master! I have a plan!:.

Harry stilled as he listened to the snake spirit's strategy. His face paled, and by the end of it, his friends were glancing anxiously at one another. But for the first time in over four months, Harry actually stopped and thought over the advice his sword was giving before automatically accepting it as the best course of action.

.:Don't be absurd, Master:. Decimare snapped. .:My influence may have led you to some very wrong decisions, but you are still my Master, and as much as it pains me to admit it, I do have your well being in my best interests:.

'I know that,' Harry assured him. 'But it's time I start taking control of my own life. I need to make my own decisions now, not just do as you tell me.'

The snake spirit snorted. .:Ignorant to the end, I see. You've never blindly done what I told you to, despite my best efforts:. Decimare winced. .:As much as I hate to say it, I…:.

Harry felt a surge of affection for the caustic, sarcastic, evil, yet oddly likeable sword. 'You're proud of me?' he prompted with a grin.

The spirit didn't dignify that with a response, but his silence was enough to confirm Harry's suspicions. Satisfied that after his little revelation he still had all his friends on speaking terms with him, Harry announced that he'd concocted a plan.

"We aren't going to like it, are we?" Ginny sighed.

"No," Harry agreed, "you really won't."

Tristan flew back down the steps as the locked doors began vibrating from the spells the Death Eaters were flinging at them.

"I'm going to act as a diversion," Harry explained. "I'm going to blast down one of the doors and make a suicide run. Hopefully the Death Eaters will decide I'm more important to the Dark Lord than my friends."

"That's insane!" Ron protested. "You'll be captured in seconds!"

"But you can take the chance to get away," Harry pressed on. "And I'll just have to figure out a way to escape once you lot are clear."

"This will never work," Hermione told him sternly. "At least take one of us with you!"

.:They're going to break through in thirty seconds:. Decimare told him. .:Bring the strange child and be done with it:.

"I'll take Tristan," Harry announced. "Okay? Come on, Tristan, we've got a diversion to create."

"Wait!" Hermione shrieked as he and Tristan raced up the steps towards the pulsating doorways. "I didn't mean _him_!"

"As soon as we've got their attention, make a run for it through one of the other doors," Harry called to his friends. "As soon as you get out of here, head to the Atrium and explain what's going on – scream that Voldemort's attacking, if you like."

"I thought we were trying to accomplish this thing secretly," Ginny reminded him.

"Not anymore," Harry said grimly.

She smiled. "Good."

.:oOo:.

.:I'm shifting to sword form:. Decimare hissed as Harry reached the top of the steps and glanced around at the pulsating doors.

'Like hell you are!' Harry snapped. 'The Death Eaters will recognize you for what you are; if they kill me, you'll go straight to Voldemort, and he'll be unstoppable.'

.:Not if you get them before they kill you:.

'I'm not killing anyone,' Harry snapped. 'And don't try to convince me otherwise.'

Decimare hissed dryly. .:Who said anything about killing? They'll be equally incapacitated whether you stun them or hack off a few of their limbs:.

Harry considered the matter shortly, and decided that, quite frankly, he stood more of a chance with the sword than without. As the mismatched pair reached one of the doors, a glittering obsidian longsword appeared in Harry's hand.

"Ostrich," Tristan commented appreciatively. If snakes could preen, then Decimare did so.

Not knowing what spell the boy had used to lock the door, Harry said quickly, "Unlock the door, Tristan, and we can-"

The door crashed open, sending the two Death Eaters who'd been standing right behind it flying back. Harry leapt into the room, sword poised for combat. Tristan hovered behind, ready to assist if necessary. Harry was fine with that – he wasn't too keen about the first year dying on his account. In fact, he wasn't too keen on anyone dying on his account.

Shouting filled the room, and a moment later Lucius, Bellatrix, and the other Death Eaters burst in, assuming that their companions had finally breached the door. When they were confronted with the sight of Harry Potter, dirty, bleeding, and grim-faced, clutching a very large, very deadly looking black sword, they faltered in their charge.

"I've been running from you and your half-blood master for a long time, and I'm tired of it," Harry proclaimed, shifting into a defensive position and lowering the glistening point of his blade at the Death Eaters. "We're ending this. Now."

.:oOo:.

Fred and George were dead.

_No, not dead, _Fred thought hazily as he and his brother swirled along a golden stream of flickering lights and wavering shapes that were quite unlike anything he'd ever seen. _Disoriented. And rather nauseous, all things considered. _Wisps of silver, and blue, and green, and every color of the rainbow curled around their flailing forms as they were dragged deeper into the time stream.

"Fred!" George called from somewhere, possibly above him. There didn't seem to be an up or down in the time stream. "What's happening?" His voice sounded as though it were coming from deep underwater.

"Did it go wrong?" Fred wondered absently. For some reason, he just couldn't muster up the effort to worry about it.

"I don't know," George said slowly. "I don't think anyone's ever gone back this far."

"S'only a year and a half," his twin mumbled.

George yawned widely. "I know…"

Mesmerized by the beautiful, swirling colors, the Weasley twins, intrepid time adventurers, faded into unconsciousness.

When they re-awoke, they found themselves lying flat on their backs in the middle of the Hall of Prophecies… except this hall wasn't nearly as damaged as it was the last time they'd seen it. This was likely owing to the fact that it was exactly eighteen months before Harry had led his friends into the bowels of the Department of Mysteries.

The twins leapt to their feet and surveyed the room critically. "No shelves knocked over," George observed, "no scorch marks… I think we did it!"

"Went back at least a day, anyway," Fred said, "but more than that…"

"Too soon to tell," his brother agreed. Raising their wands, the twins cast disillusionment charms on each other. "Let's go," George whispered, and they were off.

They made their way with little difficulty out of the Ministry – the wizards and witches that worked in the building were far too busy with their own activities to pay attention to two well concealed intruders. Not to mention that the Ministry was built to keep people out, not in. Once they'd reached the Atrium, the twins quickly Apparated to a deserted field just outside Ottery St. Catchpole.

"Alright, Fred?"

"Have I got all my limbs?"

The twins sniggered and set off at a brisk walk. Within thirty minutes, they'd reached a small hill that overlooked their home, the Burrow.

"The gnomes are running wild," Fred sighed. "I feel sorry for us."

"It'll take us three days to get them all out of Mum's garden," George agreed nostalgically. "Ahhh, the great gnome blight of '93. We did it."

Fred aimed a mock bow at his twin. "Thanks to you, brother mine. Such excellent time turning!"

"Oh, do go on," George drawled. The pair smirked at each other and cautiously approached the house. From their memories – and they would never forget this fateful day – they knew that their mother was shopping in Diagon Alley with Ron and Ginny, leaving them alone in the house to wreak whatever mayhem they pleased.

"You remember what comes next?" Fred grinned.

"A flash of light," George said reminiscently, "and our lives changed forever. Would you like to do the honors?"

"Be my guest," Fred offered generously. Raising his wand, George aimed it at the Burrow and shot a huge spark of light from the tip. It turned into a veritable wall of light as it sped at the house and crashed harmlessly into the mismatched walls. The twins grinned when they heard astonished exclamations coming from their room.

Thirty seconds later, sixteen year old versions of the Weasley twins burst out the kitchen door, peering around eagerly for the source of the brilliant light. Exchanging a glance as if to say, "this is it", the current Fred and George leapt into the yard directly in front of their astonished alter egos.

"Blimey," the past twins chorused.

"'Ello old chums," current Fred beamed. "And before you ask, yeah, you're gonna time travel a few years from now."

"Wicked!" the past twins whooped.

"Past Fred, this is your future self," current George introduced. "Past George, one day you're going to become this fine specimen of male kind that stands before you now." The two Georges exchanged an enthusiastic high five.

"It's a good thing that we're trustworthy," Fred lectured their younger selves sternly. "If we were Death Eaters, you'd be dead by now for trusting us so easily."

"Lots of time for us to grow paranoid in our old age," past Fred quipped.

"Oy! Who are you calling old?" current Fred bellowed.

"Boys, boys, behave yourselves," the two Georges chorused, then grinned at each other happily. "We rock," they decided. "George forever!"

"Oh, shut it," the Freds grumbled.

"So what brings you to our humble time?" past Fred inquired pleasantly as the twin twins plopped down on the grass for a good long chat. Future George immediately rummaged around in his pocket and retrieved a piece of crinkled, hopelessly rumpled paper.

"This is a list of everything that happens from this day till about a year and a half from now," George lectured their younger selves. Past Fred all but grabbed the list from his future self's hands, and the sixteen year olds pored eagerly over its contents.

"What's this?" past George frowned as he ran his finger down the page.

"Dates that muggle movies are coming out," future Fred grinned. "Make sure you go see them soon as they're in theatres, mini George, they're bloody brilliant."

Past Fred was examining one of the topmost entries. "Ireland beats Bulgaria! Brilliant!"

"But it says that Krum gets the snitch," past George added. "You want us to bet on the game? But it says we won't get paid!"

"Not important," future George said. "All you need to do is try your darndest to get your – I mean, our – money back from Bagman, and the cash will literally be in the bag."

Past Fred was reading further down. "Future me… mate, we can't let Harry go through with this tournament!"

"Oh yes we can," future Fred said glumly.

"Why?"

"Because we already have."

The past twins frowned.

"We're only doing this whole time traveling thing," future George hastened to explain, "because when we were sixteen, _our _future selves came back and told us everything that we're telling you now. So it stands to reason that everything we did because of the knowledge they gave us, they did as well, or else they would have been able to come back in time, because they must have had _their _future selves come back to them, and-"

"You have no idea about any of this, do you?" past Fred grinned.

"Neither will you in a few years," future Fred snapped. "I don't remember being such a cheeky little bugger…"

Past Fred sighed. "And to think I'll go senile at such a young age."

Fred made to tackle his younger self, but both Georges forcibly held him back. After a brief struggle, Fred quieted down (as much as a Weasley was capable of being quiet; Percy always excepted), and the quartet bantered happily about what the future held.

"So… James Potter comes back to life, is what you're telling us," younger George blinked.

"That's incredible," his twin added. "But then, what can one expect. After all…"

"He _is _a Marauder!" all four chorused.

"How do you keep doing that?" past Fred wondered. "Saying the same things we do at the same time?"

"We're the same people, but you _are _much older than us," past George agreed.

"You forget," future Fred laughed. "We've already had this conversation."

"Oh yeah?" past Fred challenged. "What am I thinking of _right this moment_?"

The future set of twins exchanged grins. "_Angelina_."

Past George snorted. "Even I could have guessed that one. What am _I _thinking of?"

"Roast turkey with stuffing and mashed potatoes and Mum's _fabulous _cranberry sauce," his future self supplied easily. "Fred, you think we can hang out in this time till Christmas? I'd dearly love to try some of Mum's cooking again, what with _our _Christmas not for another year and all."

Fred shook his head regretfully. "Duty calls, brother mine." He glanced at the time turner half sticking out of his twin's pocket. "We've got to go help Harry."

"Harry Potter?" the past twins chimed.

"What trouble's he got into now?" younger Fred grinned.

"When our future selves came to see us," future George explained grimly, "they told us that as soon as we got back to school, we should _immediately _start researching the Hall of Prophecies, eavesdrop on Order meetings to overhear You-Know-Who's plans, and watch out for Harry at all costs."

"What's he going to do?" younger George blinked. "What are we going to help him with?"

"A number of things, all listed so you don't forget," future Fred grinned. "This is the same list we got from _our _future selves. It's probably been handed down and down from the future to past us's for… eternity, I guess."

"Don't forget to research the stunning spell in _extensive _detail," future George pressed. "You're going to make a device that stuns a huge amount of people and wipes out their memories for two minutes."

"Harry does something stupid, doesn't he?" the past twins chorused. No response was necessary.

"Oh!" future Fred added hastily, "and make sure you actually _do _this stuff. I'm not going to have the timeline messed up because our past selves are too lazy to see things through."

"You're preaching to the choir, mate," past Fred snorted. "We _are _you, and since you've already done it, we're going to do it as well."

"Well, yeah," future Fred shrugged, "but _my _future self told me that, so I figured I might as well lecture you as well. Keep the circle going and all that."

The quartet gazed at each other in a rather melancholic fashion.

"We know," future George sighed. "The pranks we could pull if all four of us were together in one timeline."

"Pity, that, but we can't stay," older Fred agreed. "We're violating all the laws of time travel as it is. Oh, don't forget to study that as well."

Past Fred snickered and tapped a finger on the list they'd received. "October 26th, 1994. Research time travel. Don't go to aisle twelve – Pince is shelving books." He glanced up. "How do we know that? One set of us somewhere down the line must have figured that out the hard way. So they must have been the originals, and written down these instructions. Except… they would have already been visited by their future selves, or else they wouldn't be researching time travel in the first place, and… blimey."

"So you're going to the… Ministry?" past George prompted while his twin tried and failed to make sense of the complexities of time travel. "To help Harry, who is…" he consulted the list. "Rescuing Peter Pettigrew, who isn't actually there. Do we really have to destroy the prophecy orb?"

"Course you do," future Fred snickered, "that's what the list says, doesn't it?"

"But what if we didn't?"

"Well, I reckon there would've been an even bigger fight, people probably would've been hurt even more, and someone important probably died, prompting the original us's to go back and change things."

"But I thought we agreed that there _couldn't _be original us's, because-"

"The time is late and we must be going!" future George cut across his younger self quickly. "Things to do, places to see, you know the drill."

The past twins stared dreamily at their future selves. "Wait until we get to this point," past Fred sighed happily. "We're going to have so much fun acting all cryptic like these gits are."

"Yeah," his future self smirked, "but don't forget that when you _do _get to act all cryptic, _your _past self is going to call _you _a git."

"Payback," future George laughed.

"In a roundabout way," past George amended.

Sensing that another fruitless discussion on time travel was about to commence… and also recalling that _his _future self had done what he was doing at the same point in their conversation, future George pulled out the time turner and started fiddling with it.

"One question," past Fred said. "Time turners turn time backward. How are you going to go forward?"

"That's why you're going to spend five hours a day researching time travel," future Fred said. "Not to mention that there are already instructions on how to build a future time turner on those papers I gave you."

"But even our original selves wouldn't know how to make a-"

"Don't start this again," future George groaned, twirling the last gears into place. "It's ready."

Fred slipped a loop of the fine chain around his neck, and gave his younger self a cheerful wink. "Fear not, me. It's not as bad as it seems."

Past Fred snorted. "Things get even more complicated, don't they?"

"Nonsense," future Fred sniffed airily. "Everything will work out perfectly and your life will become a paradise on earth."

"They never were particularly good liars," future George remarked to his past self.

"Oy!" the Freds shouted.

George set the time turner and spun the tiny hourglass into place. A golden light appeared in the center of the glass and began to grow slowly, albeit steadily.

"Fred."

"Yes, George?"

Future George smirked. "Let's make... er…"

"What's the opposite of history?"

"Future?"

"Could be. I was thinking more along the lines of anti-history. Or con-history. Or-"

The Weasley twins disappeared in a brilliant flash of light.

Sixteen year old Fred and George glanced at each other, utterly thrown by the turn of events. Fred summed up their joint feelings on the whole thing, the time traveling, the notion that they were going to sneak around behind everyone's backs to accomplish their goals (not like they weren't used to that), with one simple, heartfelt phrase.

"I can't believewe _ruined _such a dramatic exit!"

"Talk about anti-climactic."

"We'll have to work on that."

"Indeed. But we're destined to fail."

"Depressing, isn't it?"

"Oh, very much so."

They sat for long moments, simply staring at each other in complete silence, the weight of the events of the past hour pressing down on them so much so that the teenagers were barely able to come to grips with the enormity of the situation they'd been forced into.

"Want to go blow up the garden shed?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

.:oOo:.


	41. The Death of a King

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except, of course, my darling Tristan.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Forty-One – The Death of a King

"_I've been running from you and your half-blood master for a long time, and I'm tired of it," Harry proclaimed, shifting into a defensive position and lowering the glistening point of his blade at the Death Eaters. "We're ending this. Now."_

.:oOo:.

Taking in the sight of their very serious, yet rather pathetic looking adversary, Bellatrix Lestrange let out a high-pitched giggle. "Aww, ickle Potter-kins thinks he's so big and bad with his cute little sword!"

"That sword is Decimare, the Soul-Stealer, forged by Salazar Slytherin himself, and greatly sought after by our master," Lucius Malfoy said softly, holding up a cautioning hand to the psychotic Death Eater. "You would do well to temper your words, Bella. We don't know what the sword is capable of."

"I don't care," Bellatrix sneered, raising her wand. "If you're such a coward, Lucius, then let me have the first shot."

Taking in their argument, Harry quickly altered his footing so that he was facing Bellatrix instead. The woman looked even more deranged in person than she had in her photo, and Harry could almost feel the blood boiling in his veins. _This woman helped torture Neville's parents_, he thought viciously. _She took away their futures. I'm going to take hers._

.:Calm down, Master:. Decimare hissed warningly. .:You said yourself that we aren't killing anyone today. Although if you really feel the need to dispatch one of our foes, I certainly won't object…:.

Drawn back to sanity by his sarcastic sword, Harry took a few deep breaths and decided to stall for time by engaging in some witty banter. After nearly getting killed multiple times, however, Harry's drawn-out mind wasn't quite up to the challenge, so he settled for some good old trash talk.

"Tell me, Malfoy," he snarled, "how does it feel to know that your son is a nancy-boy coward, your wife cares more about her hair than your family reputation, and if it weren't for your money, the Dark Lord would have killed you for your incompetence long ago?"

Decimare whistled appreciatively.

Malfoy, understandably, did not.

"I changed my mind," he said frigidly. "Bella, my dear, do your worst."

Nonplussed, Harry cast the bleach-blonde Death Eater a puzzled look. "Er… if you want her to actually kill me or something, you'd probably want her to try her _best_, not her _worst_. I mean, if you have her do her worst at trying to hurt me, then she's not going to get very far, is she?"

And suddenly Harry was flinging himself to the floor, face pressed into the hard stone as Bellatrix's Cruciatus curse thundered past overhead. Decimare was absolutely beside himself.

.:What have I told you about staying focused on the _moment_?:. the snake spirit hissed dangerously. .:You can't go off on tangents about the poor wording of an enemy's evil monologue! If you don't pay attention to your surroundings, then-:.

'Hold that thought,' Harry said shortly, leaping to his feet and executing a strange twist in mid-air to avoid the next three curses. The Death Eaters were now hooting and cheering as Bellatrix strode forward, sweeping hair out of her sunken eyes with one skeletal hand as she prepared to attack again. It felt rather like one of those Muggle underground fighting circles, except the Muggles just punched each other till one of them was knocked out, whereas Harry was running the serious danger of being killed.

"What's this, Malfoy?" Harry jeered, sliding back into his defensive position. "You can't handle me, so you're sending a woman to take care of me instead?"

_Thank God Ginny and Hermione didn't hear that_, Harry thought fervently.

.:I never had you pegged as a chauvinist:. Decimare blinked. .:Seeing as you have such an independent girlfriend and all…:.

'Shut up,' Harry snapped. 'Do you not _understand _the concept of trash talk?'

Before Malfoy could growl out a response, Bellatrix cackled and gave her wand a little twirl. "As soon as I'm done with you, Potter, I'm going to tell your little girlfriend what you think of her… while I slowly eviscerate her with a trowel. And then maybe I'll pass her off to Lucius to do with as he… pleases…"

Bellatrix was clearly trying to rile Harry up, and of course it worked. A red haze settled over Harry's vision, and an instant later he sprang towards the smirking Death Eater. Before Bellatrix could so much as blink, Harry launched Decimare in a murderous swing towards her unprotected neck.

"_Protego_!" Malfoy screamed, a little quicker on the draw than Bellatrix. Decimare clashed with an invisible barrier just inches from her rigid body. Shifting his feet, Harry brought the sword back around for a second attempt, but the shield blocked him once more.

'Some magical sword you are,' Harry snapped angrily at Decimare. 'You can't even get through a bloody _Protego_?'

.:Make up your mind:. Decimare huffed. .:You say you don't want to kill anyone, then complain when I purposely fail at an attack that would have ended in decapitation. Which is it?:.

'I wasn't going to kill her, just slice off her arm,' Harry grumbled, lying through his teeth. Honestly, if the woman hadn't insulted his girlfriend, he wouldn't have had to resort to such extreme measures!

Breathing deeply, Bellatrix recovered remarkably quickly from her brush with death and fixed the raven haired boy with an eager grin. "So the puppy has fangs after all. Lucius, stay out of this. I want to finish Potter myself."

Malfoy clearly didn't think it was a good plan. "Bella…"

"Take everyone and go find Potter's ickle friends," Bellatrix ordered. "Maybe he'll put up more of a fight if his friends' lives are on the line."

Lucius' eyes narrowed dangerously. "Did you just give me a command, Lestrange?"

Bellatrix simply rolled her eyes. "Pretty please, Lucius darling, let me murder Potter?"

Mollified, Malfoy nodded sharply and spun on his heel to leave.

"Wait!" Harry shouted quickly. "Your opponent is me!" Like he wanted the mass murderer going anywhere near his friends. Hopefully they had reached the Atrium by now, and help was on the way. If they had run into interference, however, Malfoy would easily catch them up and kill them. Harry couldn't let that happen.

"No," Bellatrix corrected, stepping to the side to block Harry's view of Lucius' retreating blond head. "You are nobody's opponent. You are a bratty little boy who I am going to have a great deal of fun killing."

"Your son is an effeminate dropout, and you have stupid hair!" Harry called desperately at Malfoy, who only halted enough to wave a hand at the tallest Death Eater in the room.

"Mulciber," Lucius said pleasantly, "why don't you stay and take care of Potter's little Hufflepuff friend? We can't have any loose ends."

Mulciber cracked his knuckles as Malfoy slipped from the room with his entourage.

'Damn it,' Harry cursed.

.:Focus on this battle:. Decimare commanded him. .:Your friends are somewhat competent. You are not, at least not when you're worrying about them:.

'If Malfoy so much as touches a _hair on their heads_…' Harry trailed off menacingly.

.:I know, I know, you'll hunt him and his family down and murder them brutally in their sleep:. the snake sighed. .:By the way, the crazy woman is about to attack you. You may want to raise a shield:.

Harry dodged instead, feeling the heat of the Stinging Hex as it flew past his arm. While he was distracted, Mulciber leapt past him with a roar, bent on tearing the bewildered Hufflepuff standing in the doorway limb from limb. Giving a squeak, Tristan turned and tore from the room, leaving the freakishly tall and muscular Death Eater to lunge after him.

"Just you and me now," Bellatrix grinned, fixing the Gryffindor with her deranged gaze. Harry refused to show any signs of weakness.

"Let's do this."

He could almost _hear_ Decimare rolling his eyes.

.:oOo:.

James and Sirius burst dramatically into the entrance hall of the Department of Mysteries, ready and eager to kick some serious bad guy bottom and save their needlessly heroic young charge. The room was, naturally, completely empty.

"Damn it," James growled, unknowingly echoing the words his son was saying at that exact moment. He gave the many doors of the black walled room a cursory glance. "Which door, do you think?"

"Well, he's probably here to find out about the prophecy that he's not supposed to know even exists," Sirius shrugged, pointing towards the appropriate door, then pausing. "But then, maybe he actually _doesn't _know it exists, in which case…"

"The room of endless teddy bears?" James suggested.

Sirius smacked him. "That doesn't even exist, you prat."

James nodded gravely. "You're right. The Ministry closed down the stuffed animal department after the Great Plushie Attack of 1973."

The pair exchanged a serious glance, before bursting into laughter.

"Seriously," Sirius finally said, "which door?"

"Do you have a bottle?" James inquired.

"To spin? Why don't we just pick one and hope for the best?"

"That's stupid; we'll pick the wrong one, and then we'll miss Harry and his friends completely!"

"And I suppose spinning a bottle will be _so _much more accurate!"

"What do you want from me?" James demanded. "It's not like some magical sign from heaven is going to appear and tell us which door to go through!"

Fred and George suddenly burst through one of the doors.

James all but collapsed in despair. Smirking triumphantly, Sirius whacked his friend affectionately on the head, and gave the Weasley twins a jubilant wave. "I don't suppose you know where my idiot Godson's run off to, do you?"

The red-haired duo exchanged irritated looks. "Well, this is just brilliant," Fred groaned. "We devote two years of our lives to make sure Harry Potter survives this ill-fated excursion…"

"… and he ends up getting himself killed anyway," George said glumly.

"He isn't dead, we just don't know where he is," James corrected shortly. "And what on earth are you two talking about?"

"Nothing," the twins chorused shiftily.

"Is that a time turner?" Sirius demanded.

George hastily stowed the glittering object in his pocket while Fred said evasively, "You must be imagining things, sir."

Aware that the twins would never use such a respectful term unless they were so mentally exhausted that they couldn't come up with a better response, James prepared to interrogate them, but was cut off by Sirius. "Where did you last see Harry?"

"Hall of Prophecies," the twins chirped.

"Which means that if we consider the Law of People-Always-Being-In-The-Last-Place-You-Look, coupled with the Rule of Battles-Always-Taking-Place-In-Horribly-Dangerous-Locales…" James trailed off.

"He's probably in the Death Chamber, or close to it," Sirius concluded.

Three seconds later, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Ron burst through the door leading to the Death Chamber. James and Sirius exchanged a triumphant high five. Then they leapt in front of the weary students and shoved them back as all the remaining Death Eaters who weren't otherwise occupied ran into the room.

"Distract them," James told Sirius. "I'll interrogate our wayward students."

Sirius rose to the occasion beautifully. "_Come no further_!" he intoned in a loud, deep voice that successfully stopped the Death Eaters in their tracks. This was more due to their need to analyze their new opponents, rather than out fear of the glowering Animagus, but the result was the same.

"You six," James said quickly, crouching down in front of the bedraggled teens, all of whom were clearly exhausted and quite happy to leave the fighting to the more experienced Aurors. "Where are Harry and that Hufflepuff kid?"

"I imagine they may or may not possibly be in some sort of danger," Luna Lovegood commented vaguely.

"Harry said he was going to stall for time," Hermione quickly piped up. "He took Tristan with him. They should be in one of the rooms off that big room with the archway."

Meanwhile, Sirius had conceived a brilliant strategy to keep the Death Eaters at bay. This mainly involved traumatizing Lucius Malfoy out of his inbred mind. "I'm afraid I can't let you gentlemen past," he said apologetically, looking sincerely regretful.

Malfoy smirked. "Whatever you're planning Black, it won't succeed. Travers, kill him."

"Avada-"

"I'm sleeping with your wife," Sirius blurted out. The Death Eaters froze.

"What?" Malfoy growled slowly.

Sirius raised his free hand to scratch the back of his neck sheepishly. "See, it's like this. I've never been very interested in her, you understand, but over the Christmas holidays I ran into her while she was shopping, and she was wearing those gauzy crimson robes you bought her as an engagement gift… well, one thing led to another…"

"DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT SLEEP WITH MY WIFE?" Malfoy bellowed.

"I'm not sure there was all that much sleeping involved…" Sirius said thoughtfully.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" the blonde man shrieked, his already unhinged mind snapping completely at the thought of his wife cheating on him with another man… who was her _cousin, _no less. "AVADA-"

"Plus, you remember that week where she was 'taking a holiday in Nice'?" Sirius continued gleefully, shamelessly taunting the murderous Death Eater. "She wasn't exactly relaxing, if you get my meaning…" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

James had by this time organized the students and outlined his haphazard plan. "Sirius, that's enough," he quickly intervened before his friend came up with something that would cause Malfoy to implode or something equally difficult to clean up after. And he just _knew _they'd be assigned to cleaning duty.

"Go," James ordered, and before the enraged Death Eaters could move, the six students turned and fled out of the Department of Mysteries. "They'll Floo back to Hogwarts and contact the Order," he told Sirius quietly, who nodded. Glancing at the fuming Malfoy patriarch, James winced. "Padfoot, when I said distract them, I didn't mean infuriate them so that they'll become even more dangerous than usual…"

The Death Eaters arrayed in a line before them, successfully blocking every door that could possibly lead the two Aurors to the Death Chamber, and thus their idiotic son/godson. They exchanged an exasperated glance.

"I was hoping to avoid a two on… a whole bunch confrontation," James groaned.

Sirius gave him a helpless 'what-can-you-do?' shrug. Frowning, James raised his wand and slid smoothly into an offensive stance, Sirius copying his motions seamlessly. The most deadly fighting team ever to grace the Auror ranks turned twin glares on their black robed opponents.

Suddenly, a bestial grin appeared on Sirius's face. "Time to die," he growled, and all hell broke loose.

.:oOo:.

Bellatrix quickly discovered that her current strategy wasn't working. Every spell she threw at the emerald-eyed boy was either dodged or deflected by his hissing sword. "Well," she mused, "if you can't beat them…"

"Eviscerate them?" Harry suggested brightly, slashing wildly at the gaunt woman, who leapt back to avoid his attack. She flicked her wand, and suddenly the piece of wood was replaced with a gleaming longsword.

"If you absolutely _insist_," she cackled, a manic gleam in her eye. Harry barely had time to switch to defense before the Death Eater leapt at him sword first. Swinging Decimare up, he met Bellatrix's blade with a metallic clang. After a brief struggle for dominance, the duelers disengaged and began circling each other warily.

'On a scale of one to ten, how skilled is she with a sword?' Harry asked Decimare in trepidation.

.:Try a basic attack combo, and I'll figure it out from how she counters:. the snake spirit commanded. .:And try not to get yourself killed, you incompetent fool:.

With Decimare's less than helpful words ringing in his ears, Harry hefted the blade and moved in to strike. First high, then low, then a quick spin to the side… all of which were easily blocked by the smirking woman.

"Such pathetic attacks aren't going to work on me," Bellatrix taunted. "You're going to have to do better than that, Potty."

"Good lord, is it _that _difficult to get my name right?" Harry demanded, ducking low to take a sweep at the Death Eater's legs, which she blocked, and countered with a thrust of her own. Jumping back, the Gryffindor swept a hand quickly across his sweaty forehead before returning to his defensive stance.

.:Well, the bad news is that the crazy woman seems to know what she's doing:. Decimare announced. .:The good news is that you can probably take her… assuming she doesn't try anything underhanded:.

Harry gave a grim smile. 'I'll just have to incapacitate her before she gets to that point, then.' Then, out loud: "Okay, let's try something a little bit tougher, shall we?"

He surged forward again, but this time he was moving double the speed he had used before. Slightly taken aback, Bellatrix stumbled a little as their swords met. That was all the advantage Harry needed. Feigning a slice at her neck, he quickly reversed his swing and managed to cut a shallow slice across the woman's right leg.

Bellatrix shrieked, more in surprise than pain, and countered furiously, releasing a barrage of sweeps and thrusts that had Harry stumbling back, losing all the ground he'd just gained.

.:Alright, she isn't _that _skilled:. Decimare frowned. .:You'd better be trying to lull her into complacency, Master, or I'm going to kill you myself once she's done chopping you up into little pieces:.

'Oh, shut up and let me at least pretend my actions aren't that predictable,' Harry snapped. Sure enough, just as Bellatrix was preparing for the final, killing stroke, Harry pivoted to the side and dove past her. Before the woman could even register his movement, he had spun around and plunged his sword through her abdomen.

Except that somewhere in there the conniving woman had called up a full body shield, so Decimare bounced off the invisible barrier and Harry's brilliant ploy was for naught. Furious, Harry stepped it up a notch, unleashing a flurry of attacks at the woman, who now found herself desperately fighting off her opponent much the same way Harry had been not a minute ago.

.:You might as well try out that attack I taught you last week:. Decimare suggested mildly, apparently growing bored with the fight. Harry couldn't figure out why, as although he had Bellatrix on the defensive, it took all his skill to make sure it stayed that way.

'If you think that's a good idea…' He'd only tried it out a few times in practice, and only against his shadow ally; Harry didn't want to accidentally decapitate his girlfriend, after all.

"It's been fun, Lestrange," Harry announced cockily, flashing his trademark Golden-Boy-Grin at the panting woman. Resting Decimare on his shoulder, Harry paused for a moment to gather his strength for the final strike.

Bellatrix, clearly thrown by his sudden surge of confidence, settled into an uneasy defensive position. "You're different than what I've been told," she said slowly, giving the boy a calculating look. "The Dark Lord told me about you… but you aren't anything like what I expected."

Harry shrugged. "Hey, it's not my fault Voldemort's descriptions are bloody awful."

The woman was still giving him that creepy, appraising stare. Despite his confidence that he could definitely take this woman on, Harry felt it wavering when her eyes, utterly devoid of emotion, met his own.

.:And now you're going to hesitate, screw up, and get yourself killed:. Decimare groaned. .:Lovely:.

Harry's unease was abruptly replaced with irritation for his snake companion. 'I'm going to melt you down one day,' he hissed in annoyance. 'Do you _have _to constantly make those stupid, annoying, sarcastic remarks when I'm clearly trying to_ survive a deadly duel with an effing Death Eater?_"

.:Then attack already, and stop being such a drama queen:. the snake snapped.

'I swear to _God_, Decimare, one of these days…' Suppressing the urge to snap the idiotic blade in two (which, after several past attempts, he knew was an impossible feat), Harry shoved the snake's voice forcefully from his mind and decided to finish the duel before he ended up stabbing himself in frustration.

Switching to his highest level of speed, Harry was basically a blur as he rained down a series of slashes and lunges that all but drove Bellatrix onto the ground with their intensity. Baring her teeth, the Death Eater countered viciously, and the pair struck a deadly dance across the blood-stained flagstone floor.

The attack pattern pounded hypnotically in Harry's head, because while this particular attack was new, the rhythm of swordplay was as familiar to him now as breathing. _Slash to the left, upper-cut, dodge, parry, thrust, parry, dodge, slash to the right, parry, sidestep…_

And then Bellatrix feinted to the right, leaving her entire left side exposed. Harry moved in for the kill. He thrust Decimare toward the opening, purposely falling into her trap, and indeed, a second later, her sword came swinging at his supposedly exposed neck. Unfortunately for her, Harry was much more skilled with a sword than she was, and he moved so fast he seemed to disappear.

"What the-" she gasped as Harry appeared directly behind her. Bellatrix desperately began to turn, to block the inevitable attack, but she was too slow, and she knew it. Giving a triumphant cry, Harry plunged the glimmering black sword into her unprotected back. Not a fatal strike, but definitely not one she'd be recovering from any time soon.

Bellatrix Lestrange gave a strangled gasp and crashed to the floor, blood seeping from the nasty wound. Grimacing, Harry quickly tugged the black sword from her body, fighting back the urge to vomit at the sickly stench of her blood.

.:Honestly, Master, you're such a wimp sometimes:. Decimare sighed.

Harry gazed down at the unconscious, badly wounded woman lying at his feet. "I… I killed her…" he said softly.

Decimare rolled his tiny obsidian eyes. .:Stop being so melodramatic. She's obviously alive, just in great pain. Now wipe off my blade already, I can feel myself rusting already:.

Harry dully did as he was told, still staring at the motionless body with haunted eyes. "I wanted to kill her, Decimare," he gasped, tears prickling in his eyes. "I nearly did…"

.:For Salazar's sake, Master, if you don't cease your incessant whining, I'll possess you and stop you myself:. Decimare heaved an impatient sigh. .:We do not have time for emotional outbursts. Your friends could be dying at this very moment:. The snake took a deep breath, clearly steeling itself for the words that followed.

.:Master… I can't believe I'm actually saying this… the fact that you are this annoyingly weepy after hurting someone is what makes you the good guy. As long as you act to save others, and feel compassion for your enemies, you will remain the short-sighted, idiotic, head-strong hero that you are:.

Harry hastily wiped away the few tears that had started to pool in his emerald eyes. "You know, Decimare, you actually sounded human there." Unexpected feelings of fondness for the snake overwhelmed the remorse he felt for the fallen Death Eater. "Decimare, I… I mean…"

.:Don't you _dare _confess your undying love for me:. Decimare snapped.

"I wasn't going to," Harry protested. "I was just going to say that-"

The tiny metal snake uncoiled from around the hilt of the sword and bit Harry's hand. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, defeater of Bellatrix Lestrange, and all around Good Guy, yelped in pain as fangs the size of needles pierced his flesh.

.:You're pathetic:. Decimare sighed.

"Oh, forget it," Harry snapped, the amicable mood effectively ruined. "Which way did Tristan go?"

.:Probably back into the Death Chamber:.

Harry gave an alarmed start. "I didn't know it was called the bloody _Death Chamber_! I have to go save Tristan!"

.:And again you run off half-cocked to save someone who doesn't need saving:. Decimare groaned. .:You are an inspiration, Master:.

"… shut up."

.:oOo:.

Mulciber, Death Eater extraordinaire, had never before felt the urge to strangle someone so greatly as he did right now. When Malfoy had ordered him after Potter's companion, Mulciber had assumed that he would chase around the little brat for a bit, torture him for a while, then kill him before returning to inform Lucius of his success.

Except that as soon as Malfoy took off, so had the kid, tearing out of the room like the hounds of hell were on his heels. _Hounds of hell, ha_. Mulciber liked to work witty metaphors like that into his speech. It made him feel clever. An ex-girlfriend had once told him that they weren't witty, they were clichéd. So he'd ripped her head off her shoulders and tossed her in the lake. That was what happened to most people who annoyed the burly Death Eater.

So when Mulciber hurtled down the stairs of the Death Chamber after the scrawny Hufflepuff boy, he greatly anticipated that wonderful moment when his hands would close around the kid's pulsating neck and rip it apart like wet tissue paper. _Oooooh, that was a good one… _

But the problem was that, as fast as Mulciber ran, the kid seemed to be just a little bit faster, always keeping a step ahead of the Death Eater. When the boy had led him up and down the stairs, around the room, over the arch, and then back up the stairs again, Mulciber realized that this was perhaps not the best way to go about things.

Feeling very wily, Mulciber skidded to a halt and… _drew his wand._ Because he was a _wizard_. _Wait until I tell Avery about this, _Mulciber thought gleefully. _He'll be so impressed…_

Now Mulciber had to figure out which spell to use. Luckily for him, the kid had apparently sensed his dilemma, because he slowed to a stop and obligingly gave the burly man time to plan his next course of action.

Figuring that a stunning spell should do the trick, Mulciber raised his wand and cried: "_Stupefy!"_ A bolt of brilliant red light burst from his wand and shot toward the boy, who stood completely still, completely unprotected, and entirely at Mulciber's non-existent mercy.

It missed Tristan's head by several inches.

"Damn it," Mulciber growled. That seemed to be the catch-phrase of the day, so he figured it would be incredibly witty if he were to use it. It certainly seemed to impress the kid.

"Orange!" Tristan cried, applauding happily at the clever turn of phrase. Had Mulciber's IQ been slightly higher than that of a cucumber's, he may have noticed that the child was mocking him. As it was, Mulciber glowed with pleasure at the unexpected praise.

"I missed you on purpose," he explained to the wide-eyed child, who was clearly waiting eagerly for Mulciber's next ingenious quip. "I called it a 'warning shot'."

"Porcupine," Tristan sniffed, wiping an admiring tear from his eye.

"Now I'm actually going to hit you," he continued. "Feel free to run; it won't help you. I can hit the broad side of a barn." _Brilliant! _he crowed mentally.

"Nimis stultus es," the boy told him, head tilted to the side. "Me non necabis."

"… heh?"

"Nihil."

"… are you speaking French?"

Mulciber was officially angry. No one spoke French to him like that and got away with it. Or possibly Russian. He wasn't too good with foreign languages. "Stupefy!"

Tristan dodged effortlessly.

"You little squirrel!" Mulciber growled. "Crucio!"

This one elicited a squeak from the boy, but he successfully dodged the curse.

"Avada Kedavra!" Mulciber screamed. In his mind he was imagining the look on Malfoy's face if he failed to kill some stupid little kid.

Tristan disappeared. The spell splashed harmlessly on the strange black archway in the center of the room. Mulciber searched the room furiously for some sign of the sneaky little Hufflepuff. A tousled head poked out from behind the archway. "Mushroom," Tristan called cheekily.

Mulciber pondered his next move. He wanted to kill that kid, but the brat was too far away to reach. What to do... what to do…

.:oOo:.

James and Sirius burst into the Death Chamber, wands drawn and ready for battle. They'd managed to hold off the Death Eaters long enough for the Order to show up and take over, finally allowing them the opportunity to chase after their missing charge.

Harry was unfortunately nowhere to be seen, but on the amphitheatre floor a Death Eater had his wand out and pointed at the psycho Hufflepuff kid, who was apparently hiding behind the Archway of Death, or whatever incredibly clichéd name it had been given.

Not wanting to make any sudden moves, for fear that the boy would get hurt, the two Aurors stilled and waited for Mulciber to make a move.

.:oOo:.

Shoving the newly-transformed Decimare ring onto his finger, Harry grabbed his wand and dashed back into the Death Chamber. He vaguely noticed Sirius and James' presence across the large hall, but what really concerned him was the current standoff in the center of the room.

He could just barely make out Tristan standing behind the strange veil at the base of the room, peeking out to peer at the beefy Mulciber, who was preparing to cast another spell. Concerned that he might prompt Mulciber to attack before Tristan could react, Harry halted at the top of the stairs and reluctantly waited to see what would happen next.

.:oOo:.

Mulciber wanted to strangle the annoying brat… but the kid was too far away. Then inspiration struck like a bolt of lightning. _Nice one_, he congratulated himself. If the kid was out of reach, then the only logical thing to do was put him _in _reach. Therefore… "Accio!"

.:oOo:.

James, Sirius, and Harry watched in horror as the Death Eater raised his wand and cast the summoning spell. They half expected the Hufflepuff boy to exhibit some supernatural power and escape from the situation like he always did, but for once in his life the boy was just as thrown as they were. _No one _summoned a human being. It was stupid, and ridiculous, and it just wasn't done. You stunned them, or leg-locked them, or even _killed _them… but _summoned_?

So Tristan, King of the Monkey Slaves, was caught completely unawares when he was suddenly hit by Mulciber's totally unexpected _Accio_. Harry and his guardians looked on, helpless, as Tristan was sent flying towards the Death Eater… and therefore towards the sinister veil hanging directly between them.

"TRISTAN!" Harry screamed desperately. "NOOOOOOOOOO!"

Utterly unconcerned as ever, the unflappable Hufflepuff boy flashed Harry a toothy grin as he catapulted head first towards the fluttering veil. Then the boy reached the arch and vanished, as if he'd never existed in the first place.

Tristan was gone.

.:oOo:.


	42. The Return

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except, of course, my darling Tristan.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Forty-Two – The Return

_Tristan, King of the Monkey Slaves, was caught completely unawares when he was suddenly hit by Mulciber's totally unexpected Accio. Harry and his guardians looked on, helpless, as Tristan was sent flying towards the Death Eater… and therefore towards the sinister veil hanging directly between them._

"_TRISTAN!" Harry screamed desperately. "NOOOOOOOOOO!"_

_Utterly unconcerned as ever, the unflappable Hufflepuff boy flashed Harry a toothy grin as he catapulted head first towards the fluttering veil. Then the boy reached the arch and vanished, as if he'd never existed in the first place._

_Tristan was gone._

.:oOo:.

As Tristan's fuzzy head disappeared through the veil, Harry let out a murderous howl and charged at Mulciber, not caring that his guardians were about to witness him committing his first ever act of murder.

'Transform!' Harry snarled to Decimare, who was still in ring-form and not making any move to change that. 'Transform, damn it!'

.:And have your guardians discover it was you who has been in possession of me this entire time?:. the snake scoffed. .:Unlikely:.

He hit the floor of the amphitheatre with a dull thud, picking up speed as he bolted toward the Death Eater. Mulciber, who had apparently discovered that Harry's cries for murder were most likely directed at him, slowly began to turn and face the enraged boy.

'I don't really care,' Harry thought grimly, wand forgotten as he prepared to beat his enemy into a bloody pulp. 'I feel it's only fair to warn you that I fully intend to murder this man with whatever weapon I can get my hands on. Unless you want the humiliation of watching your Master kill someone with his belt buckle, you might consider transforming.'

.:Honestly:. Decimare groaned. A coat of molten black metal snaked its way around Harry's hand, the ring mutating into what looked like a set of brass knuckles, except that, of course, they weren't made of brass. Hefting his new weapon experimentally, Harry gave a grim nod of satisfaction and drove the fist into Mulciber's jaw with all his strength.

James and Sirius, who had up until now been watching the scene in horrified disbelief, quickly snapped out of their trances when they witnessed their godson take on a man three times his size. The pair leapt to the stadium floor, wands held warily in tense hands as they examined the situation.

"I'll disarm, you stun," Sirius barked. As soon as his best friend had nodded, they raised their wands simultaneously and cast their hexes.

"_Stupefy_!"

"_Expelliarmus_!"

The burly Death Eater was catapulted backward into a row of seating, his wand arching gracefully into Sirius's outstretched hand. James's hand was suspiciously empty. _Don't tell me Harry wasn't even using his wand! _he blinked. _Idiot, idiot boy, taking on a Death Eater without a weapon! _Of course, he would have done the exact same, so James decided to forgo the obligatory lecture.

Harry _did _have a weapon, of sorts, but as Decimare had pompously informed him: .:No way in Hell, Tartarus, or Inferno, is a measly disarming spell going to separate me from my Master:. So the manly black brass knuckles stayed firmly on Harry's rather bloody fist as he was thrown in the opposite direction from Mulciber. Crashing to the floor a few feet from the dais upon which the veil stood, Harry immediately surged to his feet and sprinted for the groggy Death Eater.

"Oh, for the love of…" Sirius sighed, whose stunner had clearly failed to subdue the Death Eater. "Figures a troll-like man would have troll-thick skin. _Stupefy_!" The red jet of light bounced off Mulciber's back, staggering the man but failing to drop him. A second later, Harry had thrown himself at the Death Eater again, fists beating furiously into the man's fleshy stomach.

"I HATE YOU!" Harry screamed, sending the man reeling with a jab to the nose. "YOU BASTARD! HOW COULD YOU KILL TRISTAN! HE WAS JUST A KID! AN INNOCENT KID! A KID WITH, ADMITTEDLY, PSYCHOTIC TENDANCIES, BUT HE STILL DIDN'T DESERVE TO DIE!"

.:What on _earth _are you talking about?:. Decimare demanded. Harry ignored him and carried on beating Mulciber into a bloody pulp. .:Master… Master! Oh, forget it. When you feel like listening, give me a shout:. The snake fell silent, off to wherever evil possessed sword spirits go when they aren't actively pestering their Masters with annoying, yet extremely useful, advice.

Sirius and James exchanged a look, before pocketing their wands and leaping into the fray. Amongst the flying limbs and bloodthirsty cries of vengeance, it was difficult to tell who was who, and the battle ended up being a confusing four-way fist fight.

Albus Dumbledore raced into the room a minute later. His keen mind immediately analyzed the situation, trying to figure out what was going on, and failing spectacularly. The old Headmaster quickly deduced that the four combatants had completely lost their minds, and so took the most expedient path and simply stunned them all.

When Harry awoke a few minutes later, he instantly went for his sword, as his extensive training had ingrained into him. _If you don't have a weapon, then you're about as dangerous as a butterfly_, Decimare had once told him. Harry, appalled at being likened to a butterfly, had conditioned himself to go for his weapon upon awakening if he was in an unfamiliar setting.

Of course, his sword was still wrapped around his fist in the form of brass knuckles, so all he managed to do was look rather foolish as he grasped at his side. He heard a throat being cleared somewhere above him. Glancing up slowly, Harry found himself staring straight into the glowering faces of Sirius and James.

"Er… nice to see you?" Harry tried meekly.

.:oOo:.

Dumbledore glanced briefly over to the dais, where Sirius and James were interrogating Harry, who looked positively miserable, within an inch of his life. So far they'd managed to establish that Harry was an idiot, imbecile, and needlessly heroic prat, but they had yet to discover the reason behind his impromptu trip to the Ministry. Albus was also interested in learning what had prompted the four men into a no-holds-barred fist-fight, but that could wait for later.

He had been sitting lazily in his office, going over the reports of the day's conference, when Sirius's canine Animagus had shot through the window and reported a most disturbing message. The gist of it was, essentially, that Harry Potter and his friends had, for some reason which may or may not have been related to the infamous prophecy, snuck into the Ministry of Magic, been attacked by Death Eaters, and were currently fighting for their lives.

Albus was old, but he could still be pretty sprightly when he so chose. He'd immediately sent out his Patronus to gather up the Order's inner circle, and directed them towards the Ministry of Magic. After prompting Fawkes to go ahead of him and check out the situation, Albus produced an illegal Portkey and teleported to the Department of Mysteries.

Sprinting towards the entrance, Albus discovered Luna Lovegood, Hermione Granger, and four Weasleys scrambling through the door, clearly off to seek help. He came to a serene halt and, after several calming gestures, managed to get an update on the situation. "Sirius and Mr. Potter are fighting almost a dozen Death Eaters in the entrance chamber, and Harry and Tristan are near a large amphitheatre with a sinister veil in the middle, also fighting." One could always count on Miss Granger to keep her head in a stressful situation.

Bobbing his head to the brunette, Dumbledore had proceeded through the door Harry's friends had just recently vacated, to find himself intruding upon a most unusual scene.

James, it appeared, was an Elemental – that is, he could produce his element, which happened to be fire, without the use of a wand. While the bespectacled man laid down a hail of flames on the Death Eaters, Sirius had conjured up a very large frog that was happily shooting rather deadly acid at all the men who weren't actively being set on fire.

Satisfied that things were stable for the moment, Dumbledore made his way up to the Entrance Hall, where the Order members were steadily trickling their way towards the lifts. Catching sight of Minerva McGonagall, Albus hurried over to the stately woman, who was sliding inconspicuously through the crowd.

"What is it?" she asked instantly, eyes bright and mouth twisted into a severe frown. "Does this have something to do with Potter?"

"Two of them, actually," the Headmaster replied jovially. "Kindly round up the Order members as they arrive and direct them to the Department of Mysteries, won't you?"

Professor McGonagall gave a sharp nod and slipped back into the stream of witches and wizards. Satisfied that reinforcements were on the way, Albus ducked behind a wizard lacing up his shoes and Apparated back down to the Department of Mysteries.

For an escaped convict and a man who had been dead for fourteen years, Dumbledore had to admit that the two Aurors were still some of the best duelists he'd ever seen. Not to mention that they were probably the most creative. Following his amphibian theme, Sirius seemed to have summoned an entire pond full – the room was absolutely swimming in frogs of all sizes and colors. One Death Eater was trying to escape through a door, only to have his leg seized by several bright purple flippers. Hysterical screams of terror followed.

While Sirius occupied the lesser minions, James had apparently decided to square off against the head minion himself, Lucius Malfoy. Albus watched with no small amount of trepidation as the Auror reared back and breathed a huge stream of fire, dragon-like, from his mouth at the blonde aristocrat.

Leaping back and erecting a shield, Malfoy snarled distastefully, "Damn it, Potter, watch where you're spewing that filth! You'll singe my robes at this rate." Clearly the state of his wardrobe was more vexing to him than the fact that his Death Eaters were currently being eaten alive by giant frogs.

"It's not filth," James snapped, equally annoyed. "I would think you of all people would appreciate fire, Malfoy! Isn't it some Slytherin ritual to set little furry creatures on fire?"

Lucius mumbled something that may have been an agreement, before tossing his freakishly lustrous locks back and beginning a flurry of rather nasty curses. James managed nicely, exchanging witty banter and striking various dramatic poses at appropriate intervals. Soon enough, Malfoy got a bit uppity and tried to kill James with a well-placed Avada Kedavra, so Dumbledore decided to step in.

Conjuring up a rather cushy looking armchair, the Headmaster quickly grabbed the dueling Potter by the scruff of the neck and hauled him behind the upholstered barrier. "Headmaster!" James grinned, wincing as the armchair suddenly exploded from the force of Malfoy's death curse. "We've got things more or less under control, sir."

Albus bestowed his best eye twinkle upon the boy and clapped his shoulder with a proud smile. "You've done well, my boy. The Order will arrive in but a moment – as soon as they get things under control, you can fill me in on the details. Speaking of details, would you happen to know where young Harry is?"

Rather than respond, James grabbed the wizened old man and yanked him out of the way of another Avada Kedavra, courtesy of an increasingly frustrated Lucius Malfoy. "How did _he _get here already?" Lucius demanded, casting a furious look at Dumbledore, who smiled serenely.

"It is simply another sign that your side is doomed to fail," he replied pleasantly.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

"Not if you get killed before we can bring about said failure," James corrected, pulling the Headmaster once more out of harm's way. Albus was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, of course, but it was nice to let the younger generation handle things for a change.

As if on cue, the rest of the Order of the Phoenix burst into the room. Then they stopped, blinked, and recoiled slightly at the sight of almost a dozen Death Eaters slowly being devoured alive by carnivorous frogs.

Obviously very pleased with himself, Sirius vanished the frogs with a jab of his wand and gave the Order an inviting gesture. The elite witches and wizards quickly moved in for the kill… or capture, as the case may be, considering that the Light side absolutely abhorred unnecessary death. Dumbledore watched proudly as his followers rounded up and captured the Death Eaters, most of whom were so glad to see the frogs gone that they surrendered willingly. The only exception was Lucius Malfoy, who managed to take down two Order members before the entire group converged on him and knocked him out.

"Well done," the Headmaster complimented. "Minerva, I assume you sent the Weasleys, Miss Granger, and Miss Lovegood back to Hogwarts?"

"Taken care of," Remus announced, striding into the room with the usual tired expression marring his otherwise handsome features. "They are safely in the hospital wing, and very worried about the fate of Harry. Where is he?"

Alastor Moody, who was doing a body count of the Death Eaters, suddenly jumped to his feet and scanned the room with his magical eye. "Where did Potter and Black get off to?" he demanded.

"If I know them, and I do," Remus said, "then they've probably gone to rescue Harry."

Dumbledore pondered this new development for a moment. "Miss Granger indicated that young Tristan Nilme is with Harry. Moody, stay here and make sure nothing happens to our dear prisoners. Minerva, go locate the Minister and inform him of the break-in. Everyone else, spread out and search for any stray Death Eaters. Remus, we will go locate Messers Potter and Black."

The Order immediately leapt into action. Giving a satisfied nod, Albus strode towards the appropriate door that would lead him to the Death Chamber, where he presumed Harry to be hiding. He filled in Remus, who was close at his heels, what he knew of the situation as they walked.

"Good thing Sirius and James arrived when they did," Remus sighed wearily. "I hate to think what could have happened otherwise. And do we know why Harry took his friends on such an ill-advised expedition in the first place?"

Albus gave the werewolf a grim look. "As far as Sirius knows, he is more or less entirely uncertain as to Harry's motivations."

Remus blinked. "Oh."

"But," Dumbledore continued, pushing through a door and into a room piled from floor to ceiling with bath mats, "he did espouse the notion that young Harry was after the prophecy."

"Oh."

"Of course, you know not the prophecy of which I speak," Albus added, "which is just as well."

"Is it dangerous?"

"Most assuredly."

Remus contemplated that one for a moment. "Then I'll wait until you judge me ready to hear it. Until then, I shall trust you are keeping it a secret for good reason."

Albus suddenly remembered why he was so fond of the werewolf – Remus Lupin was one of the only people to actually accept the fact that Dumbledore was working in their own best interest. Unlike, say, James and Sirius, who, if they discovered they were being kept from something, risked life and limb to uncover the answer at all costs.

"Where are we going?" Remus asked suddenly, taking in the increasingly dreary atmosphere of the corridors.

"The aptly-named Death Chamber," Albus sighed. They arrived at a thick wooden door, which was slightly ajar. The sounds of heated battle clamored from within. "It appears we have located your friends," the Headmaster observed mildly. "Kindly return to Alastor and have him send reinforcements, then return immediately. I'll handle things inside."

Remus nodded smartly and sprinted back up the corridor. Steeling himself for horrible scenes of carnage, death, and excessive amounts of bloodshed, Albus heaved upon the unnecessarily heavy door and stepped inside the Death Chamber.

.:oOo:.

As soon as Harry was mostly conscious, James and Sirius tore into him without mercy. When the blood-stained, bruised, and hopelessly battered boy finally returned to the world of the living, the duo fixed their sternest paternal glares on the poor Gryffindor.

"Er… nice to see you?"

Harry winced when the two men suddenly stooped over and hauled him to his feet. Decimare must have been paying some attention, because it returned to ring form before James and Sirius noticed his rather peculiar non-brass brass knuckles.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" James demanded, giving his son a stern look. "Running off to the Ministry of Magic with your friends, not telling me where you've gone, getting attacked by Death Eaters!"

"Not to mention putting your friends in mortal danger!" Sirius barked.

"Not to mention getting one of them actually killed!" Harry rasped angrily. "What, you think I don't know how stupid I was? You think I don't realize that I dragged my friends along on a stupid, pointless quest, and that Tristan died because of my idiocy? Newsflash, Sirius, Dad, I GET THE POINT!"

Taken aback, the duo lapsed into silence and peered at their young charge intently. Harry was absolutely crushed by Tristan's totally unexpected death. He couldn't come to terms with the notion of such a vibrant, colorful, completely insane boy's life coming to such an abrupt end. It just didn't compute in Harry's exhausted mind.

"He's dead, isn't he?" Harry asked his guardians quietly. He couldn't bear to look them in the eye, not when it finally hit him that Tristan's death was pretty much his fault entirely. _Why did I have to be so STUPID? _

"That veil…" James trailed off uncertainly. "I'm not an Unspeakable, Harry, so I don't know much about it, but…"

"We're pretty sure it's some kind of gateway to the underworld," Sirius said darkly. "The Ministry, instead of killing prisoners, would send them through the veil instead. It hasn't been used for executions in centuries, though."

The guilt quadrupled in Harry's mind at the confirmation of his speculations. "So he really _is _dead…"

"I'm afraid so," James said gently, putting a comforting hand on his son's shoulder. "Tristan was a good kid, Harry, and he enjoyed every moment of life. Don't you dare blame yourself for what happened to him, you hear me?"

"But I brought him here!" Harry bellowed suddenly, causing his father to take a shocked step back. "It's my fault he came here, it's my fault he had to fight a Death Eater, and it's my fault he died!"

"Yes, it is."

Harry blinked. "What?"

Sirius simply gave his godson an impassive look and repeated, "Yes, it is. It _is _your fault that Tristan came to the Ministry, and as an extension, it is _your _fault that he wound up battling a Death Eater and passed through the veil."

Harry was so shocked that he couldn't even formulate a response.

James smacked his hand to his forehead in disbelief. "Padfoot, your insensitivity is unsurpassed."

"I just wanted to shut him up," Sirius shrugged. "He was getting hysterical."

"And God forbid my son become distressed when he sees a friend _die right in front of him_," James deadpanned.

"Look, Harry," Sirius said seriously, swiveling his godson around to face him. "There's no denying you messed up, but it's not your fault that the Hufflepuff kid is dead."

"Things happen in battle that no one can predict," James agreed instantly, laying a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder. "Tristan went down the way he would have wanted to."

Harry blinked. "Juggling custard pies while dancing the polka?"

"If he can still make jokes, then he must be alright…" James sighed in relief. "You can't beat yourself up over this, Harry. You made mistakes, but you're only human. For whatever reason you came here, and it better have been a damn good one, what's done is done now, and you can't change that."

"I…" Harry stuttered. There was no way they could understand how terrible he felt right now…

"Would Tristan want you to be depressed?" James tried. "Is that how he'd want you to live your life?"

Harry was unable to contain a laugh. "I've never understood a single word he's said. I have no _idea_ what he'd want."

"You see?" Sirius beamed. "He's probably having a blast in the underworld. For all we know, God will be so annoyed with his babbling that He'll send Tristan back to earth just so He doesn't have to listen to him anymore."

The guilt, still ever-present in Harry's mind, receded ever so slightly. "You're right," he snorted. "And if he gets sent to Hell, he'll be running the place in a week."

"Exactly," James grinned, clapping his son on the shoulder. "No more moping, alright? Tristan was a good kid, and now he's at peace. Don't just mope over his death, remember him for what he did in his _life_."

Harry realized that James was speaking from personal experience – to James, Lily had died less than a year ago. _I barely knew Tristan – I can't imagine how horrible I would feel if someone I loved and cared about died._

"You're right," Harry said resolutely. "Remember his life, not his death. I can do that."

"Darn right you can," Sirius agreed.

Harry smiled.

James and Sirius then proceeded to cuff the Gryffindor teen over the head. As Harry went sprawling to the ground, his guardians immediately laid into him, bellowing and gesturing wildly as they described to him _exactly _how stupid he'd acted in the last 12 hours.

"Why the _hell_ would you come to the Ministry anyway?" James shouted. "The prophecy? Was that it? You didn't trust us to tell you, so you had to go figure it out for yourself?"

Harry forced himself to play along, unwilling to divulge the true motivations behind his actions. He prayed that his friends would be similarly circumspect when they were inevitably questioned.

Dumbledore thankfully put a stop to their tirade a few minutes later. "We have accounted for every Death Eater except Bellatrix Lestrange," the old wizard announced, effectively silencing the fuming pair. He peered at Harry over the rims of his crescent shaped spectacles. "Unless Mister Potter has an inkling of her whereabouts, then we shall assume she was not a part of this attack, conclude our operations here, and return to Hogwarts."

Harry started. "You checked for her _everywhere_?"

"Indeed," the Headmaster agreed, giving Harry a look that bordered on suspicious. "While we found the room just to your left covered with copious amounts of bloodstains, we did not actually find a body."

"I had a fight with Bellatrix," Harry admitted. "And I won. Someone probably Apparated in and rescued her before you could find her."

"Voldemort," James said grimly.

"Undoubtedly," Dumbledore agreed, clasping his hands in a thoughtful gesture. "But the question is not why he rescued Bellatrix, but why he did not return to exact revenge, or perhaps free his other captured followers."

Harry knew why. When he'd stabbed Bellatrix, he'd left her lying on the floor with bloody, painful wounds, surrounded in a pool of her own blood. The Dark Lord, upon finding her, would most likely have been taken aback by such a sight – not because he disliked bloodshed, but because he wouldn't have believed the Light side capable of such barbarity. But Harry wasn't about to voice his thoughts aloud.

The Headmaster gave a great sigh and turned wearily towards the exit. "I don't think I have to put in words how disappointed I am with you, Harry."

If Harry were to explain to Dumbledore his reasons for coming to the Ministry, the Headmaster would be congratulating him for his bravery right now, not averting his gaze as always and making Harry feel totally worthless. But Harry could not tell the Headmaster anything, because doing so would admit that he'd been stealing precious artifacts, consorting with mass murderers, and going behind his guardians' backs for the last six months.

"What about Tristan?" Harry asked before he could stop himself.

Decimare hissed irritably in the back of Harry's mind, but the Boy-Who-Lived ignored it.

"What happens to beings beyond the veil?" he pressed his Headmaster. The man remained silent.

"Beyond the veil is the afterlife," Sirius said grimly. "Living creatures that pass through that veil die, that's all there is to it. I'm sorry, Harry, but your friend is dead."

"There's simply no way he could have survived," James sighed.

"Impossible," Sirius agreed.

All four men were suddenly thrown backwards as a brilliant flash of light lit up the room, accompanied by an ear-splitting, unearthly scream. It was coming from the veil.

Staggering to their feet, Dumbledore, Harry, Sirius, and James turned towards the dais, where the veil was whipping about wildly, as if affected by some frenzied wind that no one else could feel. They were blinded by another burst of light from deep within the archway's recesses.

"This is very bad!" Sirius shouted. A shockwave pulsed through the room, dropping the men to the ground once more.

"What's going on?" James bellowed. The unearthly screech was back, in a rapid crescendo as the light intensified and the flagstone floor began to tremble.

Harry latched his fingers into a groove in the floor and held on for dear life.

"It is true that living creatures cannot return once they pass through the veil," Dumbledore said, a small smile forming on his wizened features for the first time that day. "However, the same cannot be said for those whom are already dead."

"What do you mean?" Harry demanded.

As soon as the words left his mouth, everything suddenly stopped. The veil's fluttering, the shockwaves, the lights, the noises… everything. Holding their collective breaths, the four men watched apprehensively as the veil seemed to freeze in place.

Then, ever so slowly, a pale hand reached out from behind the curtain, followed by a body. A perfectly alive, perfectly corporeal body that sent the four men reeling in complete shock.

"Impossible…" James whispered, gazing awestruck at the figure standing framed by the veil.

Harry had to force himself to breathe. He tentatively reached out a hand, unable to believe the sight before him.

"Mom?"


	43. The Queen of the Monkey Slaves

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except, of course, my darling Tristan.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Forty-Three: The Queen of the Monkey Slaves

"Mum?"

Lily Potter was exactly as James remembered her – beautiful, vivacious, and not a day over twenty. He took a tentative step forward, unable to conceive that his long-dead wife was somehow standing before him now.

"Lily… how?"

Like an angel descended from heaven, the veil cast a glowing golden halo around the woman as she turned to smile serenely at her husband and son.

"James," Lily said slowly, emerald eyes glittering with emotion in the dim light. "Harry… my dearest-"

She gave a sudden shriek of surprise as a small figure catapulted out of the veil directly into her back. There was a loud crash, and the onlookers watched in disbelief as their beloved Lily went tumbling to the ground, aided and abetted by the scrawny, familiar form of one Tristan Nilme.

All rational thought flew from Harry's head the moment he saw the Hufflepuff boy alive and well… and sprawled on the ground on top of his groaning, supposedly dead mother. "Tristan, you incredible prat!" Harry bellowed, springing forward and yanking the boy to his feet. "What the _hell _were you thinking, getting yourself killed like that? I'm going to pummel your pasty little face in! Dammit, do you have _any _idea how-"

"Potty, Potty, pasty Potty, pummeling all the ickle kiddies!" Peeves cackled as he zoomed out of the veil behind Lily and Peeves.

"Octopoidal blowfish always meet squiggly ends!" Tristan shouted fiercely. Lily, red hair all in disarray, pushed herself into a sitting position and glared at the poltergeist.

"Don't speak to my son like that!" she snarled at the pearly little man, hands flying to her rather shapely hips. "And Tristan, I've already told you not to use language like that!"

"A-a-amoeba!" Tristan protested. Peeves cackled once more and zoomed off through the ceiling. The wizards were too stunned to prevent his departure.

Sirius finally found his voice. "Alright. No offense, Lils, but everyone _shut the hell up_!" Behind Sirius, a surprisingly calm Dumbledore raised his wand and began mumbling incantations quietly under his breath.

"Don't speak to my Mum like that!" Harry frowned.

James cuffed Sirius over the head. "Don't speak to my _wife _like that!"

"_Silencio_!" Sirius retorted. "Good. Now, going on the assumption that I'm not completely out to lunch, I think the first thing I'd like to know is what the _hell _happened here."

Lily was at his side in an instant, smacking him upside the head. "Don't use such foul language in front of my son!"

"Everyone _stop _complaining about language!" Sirius scowled. "And didn't I just silence you?" Lily's eyes narrowed, and Sirius reluctantly fell silent. Harry wondered vaguely why everyone seemed so frightened of his mother. Assuming it was, in fact, his mother.

"Are you my mother?" Harry asked.

"_What is this?_" Sirius demanded. "First two dead people come back to life-"

"-three, if you count James," Dumbledore added helpfully. Harry glanced at the wizened old Headmaster, who seemed perfectly at ease with the situation. Although Harry hadn't exactly trusted the wizard of late, he was still slightly calmed by the man's serene demeanor.

"-Dumbledore acts like he saw this whole thing coming, and for some reason everyone is immune to my silencing spell!" Sirius concluded loudly.

"That's probably because you tried to cast _Silencio_ using a fly swatter," Lily commented dryly. Sure enough, Sirius clutched not a wand in his hand, but a fly swatter. Sirius immediately rounded on Tristan, as the Weasley twins were not around to take the blame.

"Avocado!" Tristan protested innocently. Lily put a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder and stepped protectively between the two.

"Tristan's right, Sirius," she said firmly. "It's a good thing he switched it, or there's no telling what you would have done."

"I am a grown man!" Sirius cried. "I don't need to be mothered!"

Harry and James glanced at each other. While everyone else had apparently gone off the deep end, it seemed they were the only ones left to get to the final, crucial question. "_Petrificus Totalus!" _they cried in unison, dropping Sirius and Tristan to the floor, immobilized.

"Alright," James declared, turning his wand on his rather startled pseudo-wife. "That's _enough_. We aren't going any further until someone tells me _exactly _what's going on."

"Like who you are," Harry added, staring at his possibly-mother. "Because although you look like my mother, resurrection is supposedly impossible, which leaves me wondering at your true identity."

Dumbledore raised his hands in a calming gesture and took a step forward. "Boys, boys, put your wands away. Now, as unfeasible as this may seem, the woman standing before you actually _is _Lily-"

"To repeat my oh-so-clever son," James interrupted, "_that is impossible_."

"Coming from a man who was recently resurrected," Dumbledore said mildly, "I would think you'd have a more open mind."

"But you didn't know about Dad's revival," Harry pointed out. "Yet _her _little entrance didn't faze you."

"Not to mention the crazy Hufflepuff kid – no offense, Tristan – just passed through the bloody_ Veil of Death _not five minutes ago, and now he's perfectly fine! Along with Peeves, who was apparently hanging around in the afterworld, because he hasn't been seen all year!" James was understandably frustrated by the current situation.

"But all that pales in comparison to the fact that there is a living, breathing, carbon copy of your wife standing right in front of you," Dumbledore said quietly, "and you desperately want to believe she's real, but can't face the disappointment if she's not."

James wilted visibly. "You're a very smart man," he sighed.

Dumbledore chuckled. "So I have been told. Now then, you have demanded answers, and I'm afraid I can only guess at some of them. The only person who will be able to answer all your questions is Lily, so let us assume for the sake of simplicity that she is, in fact, Lily Evans Potter."

Father and son nodded reluctantly. "Good," the Headmaster pronounced. "Lily, if you could please describe the events of the last few months in as much detail as you see fit?"

"Alright," Lily smiled, bobbing her head at the old wizard. She turned to Harry and James and fixed a serious expression on her smooth features. "I think a little spell of my own devising will tell the story far more effectively than I ever could," she decided.

The redhead raised her wand and began to swish it about in wide, sweeping patterns. Alarmed, James and Harry (for Sirius was still paralyzed and fuming on the floor) reached for their own wands, but Dumbledore shot them a warning look.

"_Memoriae videtis_."

The afterlife wasn't quite what Lily had expected. After her rather dramatic and abrupt departure from Earth, the redheaded young woman had awoken to find herself floating in a pool of impossibly clear water, a cerulean blue brighter than any ever viewed on earth. Glancing around, she discovered a pearly white paradise, full of majestic mansions, picturesque parks, and beautiful boulevards.

Climbing slowly to her feet, Lily had realized that she must be in heaven, or at least the part of the afterlife where good souls were sent. Her clothing, for one, was a dead giveaway, pun intended. She was dressed in the most comfortable white sundress she'd ever worn, and at a thought, it changed to become anything she could imagine. Her skin was devoid of the bruises and cuts it had acquired during her battle with the Dark Lord, and she felt more alive than ever.

_Ironic, considering I'm definitely dead_, she had thought wryly.

After the first few months in this peaceful, effervescent afterlife, Lily had pretty much settled into everyday life… or death, as the case may be. It generally consisted of waking up on the softest bed imaginable, playing a game of tennis with her mother, who'd died several years before, having a tea and chat with her father, and catching up with various deceased friends and relatives.

The rest of the time was inevitably spent watching the Life Pool, which allowed the spirits to watch events on Earth as they occurred. Lily focused almost exclusively on her young son, and the spirit world collectively winced every time one of her colorful curses against the Dursleys was shrieked.

She grew concerned after the first year when her husband failed to join her in paradise; as you could only watch current events, Lily was unable to replay James's final interactions with the Dark Lord, but her presumption was that he'd been killed. When he failed to arrive, however, she began to suspect the worst.

After a bit of exploration, Lily stumbled upon the part of the afterlife that no one wanted to go to – hell, or something very similar. The baked, searing hot gorge was absolutely merciless, and while the bottom of the huge canyon was covered in noxious clouds, Lily could still hear the screams from the poor souls trapped in the bottomless chasm from where she stood on the rim of the ravine.

At the division between heaven and hell was a narrow pathway that led to a big marble gateway. Said gateway was guarded by, for lack of a better word, angels, except these angels had big battleaxes and helmets, and tended to take a swing at whoever came close. Lily tried to approach them on several occasions to inquire about her missing husband, but after nearly losing her head in the attempt, she decided to give up and hope nothing had happened to him.

Then Harry went to Hogwarts, and Lily's peaceful little world turned upside down. For at the end of every year her precious son inevitably ended up in mortal peril, and there was nothing Lily could do about it. After Harry's first encounter with the Dark Lord (wasn't he supposed to be _dead_?), Lily had returned to the gate and tried to force her way through.

Every year after her son's latest adventure she returned to the gate, hoping that her protective motherly instincts would somehow convince the heavily armed angels to let her through, or at least give her the information she wanted. Unfortunately, the angels weren't much for conversation.

Lily: Please! My son is in mortal peril! He's alone, and unhappy, and utterly crushed from the horrific events that he has been forced to witness in his young life! Let me go to him! I beg of you!

Angel: Your words are ineffective. I shall now attempt to decapitate you.

Then, after Harry's fourth year and the full return of Lord Voldemort, Lily's annual trek to the great gate took a strange turn. Just as she began her hopeless approach, the gate had swung open of its own accord. The angels were knocked aside as a huge, shadowy claw shot through and disappeared into the depths of the hell. Lily watched in astonishment as the claw returned, clutching her _husband _in its talons.

Unable to do anything, Lily simply watched as the huge claw dragged her battered and beaten husband from hell (what was he doing _there_?) and through the gigantic marble gateway.

Things then got interesting.

The claw had apparently knocked out the angels, if such a thing was possible, and had made no attempt to close the gate after its departure. This meant that Lily was now quite literally facing an unguarded, open gate to the living world, with nothing to stop her from just stepping through.

Lily, however, had not been named Head Girl for being foolish and irrational. She was well aware that she was, in fact, dead, and therefore would simply reappear in the afterlife if she tried to return to the living world. Thus a better plan was needed, and soon, because the angels would be waking any moment.

She was startled from her musings as a psychotic cackling sound emanated from beyond the gate. A minute later, Peeves the poltergeist zoomed through the open portal, peering about with a greedy expression.

"So this is what hell looks like," Peeves grinned, doing a delighted flip in the air. "Peevsy always wondered."

"Peeves!" Lily gasped.

The poltergeist did an exaggerated double take. "If it isn't Gummy! Peeves always knew you'd end up dead."

Lily didn't bother rising to the bait. Being dead gave you a different perspective on things. "You stuck gum in my hair in _first year_, Peeves, get over it. And why are you here, anyway? You're a poltergeist; you can't pass through the gate by definition."

Peeves blew a raspberry at the frowning young woman. "Gummy, Gummy, very dumby," he chortled.

But Lily was beginning to get an idea. A very insane, very stupid idea. "I wonder, Peeves… I'm dead, so I can't pass through that gate. But if you were to lead me through…"

"Go back?" Peeves sulked. "Peevsy just got through, he isn't going back."

"Don't be foolish," Lily snapped. "Life is far more interesting than death; believe me, I know. Now, here's my proposition-"

"Peevsy not going back!" the poltergeist bellowed.

It was the most reckless thing Lily had ever done, not counting when she'd finally agreed to go out with the arrogant, tousle-haired James Potter. She took a flying leap at the surprised poltergeist and tackled him… right through the gate.

Clutching the horrified Peeves, Lily saw stars as light and time warped. An indescribable sensation flared through her body – painful, pleasurable, freezing cold, and burning hot, all at once – and she instantly fell into darkness.

"So you used Peeves to get out of the afterlife," Harry said skeptically, not entirely sure such a thing was even possible. "That's ridiculous. And no, I don't want any, go away," he added to Tristan, who had somehow escaped the paralysis hex and brewed up a nice steaming pot of tea.

"What's ridiculous is that my son turned out so rude," Lily frowned, accepting a cup from the Hufflepuff child. "Honestly James, you've been with him for almost a year now; what have you been teaching him?"

Looking rather put out by the scolding, James said petulantly, "You never give me any credit, Lils! I've been teaching him everything I know!"

"Which clearly isn't much," she scowled.

"That's not fair!" he protested. "I've taught him loads of things!"

"Oh yes," Lily agreed sarcastically. "Because learning how to pick up girls and chuck water balloons at people is really going to help him in life."

A furious flame suddenly appeared in her green eyes.

"But I'm not giving you enough credit, am I, James? I forgot to mention that you've taught my son to be an Animagus!"

James winced as his possibly-wife's voice grew louder and louder. "Do you have _any _idea how illegal that is? For God's sake, James, it was bad enough when I had to worry that the Ministry would find out about _you_!"

"Congratulations," Dumbledore told Harry genially. "An Animagus form is quite the accomplishment. May I enquire as to the form?"

"A peregrine falcon," Harry replied, not really surprised that the Headmaster wasn't at all thrown by this new tidbit of information. "But sir, please, you can't really believe that this person is my mum…"

"Time to finish up the story, I suppose," Dumbledore declared. "Lily, take it away."

Rolling her eyes at her cowering husband, Lily continued her story. "So I tackled Peeves through the gate and fell unconscious. When I woke up, I discovered that something had gone wrong… or perhaps that's always what happens when giant claws disrupt the gateway of life and a dead spirit and a poltergeist jump through it."

"Quite a solid theory," Dumbledore smiled, "as it will be nearly impossible to disprove."

"Indeed," Lily grinned. "Anyway, when I came to, my mind was really blurry, kind of half there, half not, and everything was very fuzzy. I felt this other consciousness in my mind, a crazed, illogical part that was very familiar."

"Peeves," Dumbledore supplied.

"It seemed the gate had fused us together when we passed through," Lily explained. "We had made it back, but merged together. I managed to get a good look at myself – I don't know how, as we were kind of a formless blur at the time – and I was able to direct our strange new existence to take on the form of the first human I saw."

A sneaking suspicion welled up in Harry's mind. Such a thing was of course absurd, but considering the impossible things he'd already seen and heard today…

"We took on the form of a young, brunette boy who was passing by," Lily explained. "I managed to communicate to Peeves that we needed to get to Albus and figure out what to do, but sharing your mind with a poltergeist makes planning rather difficult. We fought constantly for control over our new body, and somewhere in the process I think the dividing line between our two consciousnesses snapped. We basically became the same entity, a young boy that shared both of our characteristics."

"Tristan," Harry sighed.

"We called ourself Tristan Nilme," Lily agreed, casting a rather impish grin at her son.

Sirius and James exchanged astounded looks. "No way!" they chorused. Actually, Sirius' exclamation was more along the lines of "Mm mmm!", seeing as he was still petrified, but the message was clear.

"Then all those times Tristan showed up in unexpected places, or said things he couldn't possibly know, or disappeared without a trace…" Harry trailed off. "It was you?"

"And Peeves, merged into one rather insane little being," Lily grinned. "Ooh, we did have fun. Showing up, saying strange things – which was unintentional most of the time, actually – phasing through the walls before people could reply…"

"And it didn't occur to you to… I don't know, _tell me that you were alive_?" James snapped.

Lily frowned. "I suppose I haven't made it clear enough. I wasn't alive, I was existing. Somehow, merging my body with Peeves' allowed me to exist in the living world, but I was never alive. Not to mention that even if I told you that I had returned, James, you would have never believed me."

"Of course I would!"

"Up until a minute ago, you didn't believe I was real, even though I was standing right in front of you," the redhead smirked.

James realized his mistake a moment too late. "I still don't believe it," he maintained rather ineffectively. "Not in the least."

"So what happened?" Harry demanded, getting the narrative back on track. "You became Tristan… so why did you act so insanely?"

Lily winced. "After having had our minds merged for so long, the psyche of Tristan kind of became its own consciousness."

"And you knew all this?" Harry demanded of Dumbledore.

"The merged form of Lily and Peeves came to me shortly after their little accident and explained what had happened in a rather disjointed manner," the Headmaster agreed. "It was I who suggested they come to Hogwarts for the school year, so that Peeves might continue his existence in a familiar environment, and so Lily could watch over her son and, as I was soon to discover, husband."

"Then all those times I was talking to Tristan… I was really talking to you?" Harry demanded.

"In a sense," Lily said slowly. "Because my mind had completely merged with Peeves' by that point, and we had essentially _become _Tristan Nilme. I heard everything you said, but I didn't really process it until Tristan fell through the veil. In fact, I really don't remember much from my time as a half of Tristan, except for the bits where I managed to gain control for a brief time."

"The New Years Gala!" James exclaimed.

Lily winked. "You've always looked dashing in dress robes, dear."

"That was positively _vile_," Harry said in complete disgust. "Do you have _any _idea how many nightmares I had from watching an eleven year old hit on my grown father?"

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to elaborate further."

"Well," the redhead replied, "it's like this. The veil links to the gateway of life – they aren't the same thing, but they are connected. When Tristan, a strange conglomeration of deceased human spirit, poltergeist, and this new consciousness we unintentionally created, passed through the veil, something went wrong… again."

"That seems to happen a lot with you," Harry remarked.

"To make a very long story short," Lily continued, "Tristan passed through the veil, but because two thirds of him – Peeves, and the new consciousness called Tristan – didn't belong in the afterlife, the angels guarding the gateway of life rejected us."

"So you were… sent back to the living world?" James blinked.

"And that is the funny part," Lily grinned. "As a dead person, I'm not supposed to be in the living world… and normally that would be fine, because the angels wouldn't let me leave. But because they rejected me… I was essentially rejected from the afterlife. And if I can't be dead anymore, then logically I can only be one thing."

"Alive," Harry realized. "Mum…"

Lily smiled brilliantly and pulled her grown son into a warm embrace. "I've been waiting fourteen years to do this," she whispered into his unruly hair.

"I missed you so much," he told her fervently. "You have no idea…"

James was at their side a second later, pulling both into a family embrace. Sirius, still paralyzed on the floor, rolled his eyes while trying and failing to look unaffected by the scene. It wasn't every day that dead friends came back to life, after all. Although apparently not where the Potters were concerned.

After flicking his wand to remove the paralysis charm, Dumbledore interrupted the joyous reunion with a polite cough. "I'm afraid I have one more question for you, my dear."

"How come we aren't merged anymore?" Lily smiled. "That's actually the simplest explanation yet, Albus. Passing between life and death fused us together – it only makes sense that doing so again would break us apart."

Sirius, James, and Harry exchanged skeptical looks.

"That _doesn't _make sense," Harry whispered uncertainly.

James and Sirius shrugged. Neither was willing to argue the point with the vivacious, incredibly well-spoken redhead, so Harry let the matter drop.

"Hence Lily and Peeves emerged from the veil unscathed," Dumbledore agreed, "but Tristan is also here, and that presents the biggest problem. Lily my dear, something is wrong with your calculations, I'm afraid. Two spirits went into the creation of Tristan Nilme – three spirits came out. Such a thing is impossible."

"I'm banning 'impossible' from all future conversation," Lily declared. "It's so ambiguous."

"Answer the question," Dumbledore told her firmly.

"I already did," she returned. "Sometime during our time as one merged entity, the persona of Tristan became so real that his consciousness actually… well, it was actually created. So when we were split back into separate beings, there was this third entity floating around. I guess that since it was created when we were running around as Tristan Nilme, it's decided to take on that identity permanently."

"This is insane," Sirius declared, climbing to his feet. "You all realize that, right? This whole thing is just nutters."

"Orange," Tristan agreed darkly. "Purple midgets occasionally chortle."

"What he said!" the canine Animagus agreed fervently. "Even if such a thing were possible-"

"-which it is," Lily tacked on helpfully.

"-that doesn't explain how you…" Sirius trailed off. "Actually… that kind of _does _explain everything, doesn't it?" He looked absolutely thrown by the concept. In a world of magic, after all, things were almost never understood. A huge, complex event that could actually be fully and completely explained, with almost no loose ends, was the stuff of legends.

Harry was positively elated, and understandably so. He could not believe that in such a short time, his entire world could be so spectacularly turned upside down. At the start of the summer, he'd been parentless, angsty, and the slightest bit deranged. Now he was constantly cheerful, had both parents back, a godfather to keep them company, a gorgeous girlfriend (albeit, one who was probably ticked off at him for nearly getting her killed), and the two greatest friends in the world.

Glancing at his mother, her bright emerald eyes dancing in the torchlight the same way his so often did, Harry felt that if the story of his life were to end right then, at that moment, surrounded by his loved ones, he could die happy.

'You're not off the hook yet, Harry. We need to talk.'

"What?" Harry blinked. He turned to Lily to ask what she had meant by that rather threatening statement, but to his shock she was over twenty feet away, cooing over Tristan while James and Sirius exchanged amused looks.

'I'm using a telepathy spell, dear,' his mother's voice echoed in his mind, snickering to herself at his confusion.

.:I generally prevent others from gaining access to your mind:. Decimare hissed. .:But I assumed you would want me to make an exception for your mother:.

'You knew all along, didn't you?' Harry demanded furiously. 'You knew she was alive, stuck in Tristan's body! You've hinted at it enough times!'

.:I merely suspected:. the snake sniffed haughtily. .:And I gave you plenty of opportunities to figure it out yourself. It is certainly not my problem if you are too dense to see what is right in front of you:.

'I hate you,' Harry muttered mutinously.

'Pardon?' Lily said, rather shocked.

'Decimare!' he seethed. The snake cackled but did not respond. 'Bloody useless evil sword,' he grumbled.

'Nothing, Mum,' Harry hastily corrected. 'What did you want to talk to me about?'

The redhead across the room grinned. 'I can't remember much from my time as Tristan, but I clearly recall that you've taken up with a Weasley girl.'

'That's right,' Harry agreed cautiously.

'Developing an Oedipus complex, are we?' his mother teased.

Harry had no idea what that meant. He was pretty sure that Oedipus was some Greek guy, but he was clueless after that. 'Er… sure?'

'I'm sorry that I abandoned you, Harry,' Lily said out of the blue.

'It's not like that!' Harry protested immediately. 'I've never hated you for saving me! Why would I? You _saved me_!'

'But you looked so sad…' his mother trailed off dolefully.

'Now that you're back, I'm happy as a… really happy person,' he assured her rather ineffectively.

.:Brilliant:. Decimare groaned.

'I'm glad,' Lily told him blissfully. 'I was so worried that-'

'Don't worry about it,' Harry said firmly. 'Besides, I've managed for fourteen years without you – for Dad, you died only a couple of months ago. He's the one you should be comforting.'

His mother somehow managed to communicate her impish smile to him via telepathy. 'Believe me, James will not be complaining about my resurrection by tomorrow morning.'

Harry blanched. 'Mum, I did _not _need that mental image.'

Lily just laughed.

.:oOo:.

Remus burst into the room a minute later.

"Headmaster!" he panted, wheezing to a halt beside the ancient wizard. He'd clearly run all the way from the entrance to gather reinforcements, as approximately ten wizards and witches stampeded into the room right after him.

"Remus," Dumbledore exclaimed. "My boy, you didn't have to exhaust yourself! Things are perfectly under control here."

The werewolf glowered at the old man, who was smiling innocently. "You told me to… never mind." He paused. "Why do you two have sub-machine guns?"

James and Sirius exchanged a panicked glance and banished the weapons with flicks of their wands.

"That didn't actually answer my question…" Remus said slowly.

Mad-Eye Moody and Tonks were apparently part of the reinforcements. "Rather dismal place, this," the metamorphmagus observed. She glanced over to the huge archway in the centre of the room, around which were clustered Lily, James, Sirius, Harry, and Tristan, all of whom were clearly elated and babbling on about something.

"Oy!" Tonks called cheerfully. "You lot alright?"

Then, just as cheerfully, she looked at Lily, gave a gasp of surprise, and slumped unconscious to the floor.

Mad-Eye peered suspiciously at Lily. "You look very similar to Lily Potter."

"Evans-Potter," Lily corrected pleasantly, wrapping an arm around her husband's waist. "And yes, I do. Coincidence? I think we've determined that that is definitely not the case."

"Evans-Potter?" James protested, giving his wife a wounded look. "Since when did this happen? We've always been 'Potter'. _Just _Potter."

"Honestly, James, if you are so insecure that I want to be an independent woman in our modern society, you just have to say so."

Harry rolled his eyes as his parents started to bicker like school-children.

"She's kidding," Sirius said helpfully. "Oy, Moony! Watch it!" For Remus, emitting a strangled gasp upon seeing his dear friend alive and well, had barreled past the man to hug Lily, nearly knocking Sirius over in the process.

"I know she's kidding," Harry laughed. "She's an awful lot like Ginny, you know. They seem to have the same personality."

Sirius suddenly grew very serious. "Is that so? Then I'd be very careful next time Ginny tries to give you a box of chocolates."

Harry blinked. "What?"

"You see, Lily did this thing in fourth year where she…" Sirius trailed off at Harry's exasperated expression. "What now?"

"Oh, stop being deliberately dense," he groused. "I said their personalities are similar; they aren't the same person, you git."

The Animagus brightened. "Hey, that brings to mind a certain occasion on which James and I pretended to get engaged so that-"

Harry clapped a hand over the man's mouth. "I _really _don't want to know."

"I do," Remus piped up. "Lils, you haven't aged a day!"

"We will never speak of that humiliation again," James told Sirius sternly.

Tonks suddenly leapt to her feet, struck a dramatic pose, and cried, "Does anybody else not find it suspicious that _Lily Potter is alive_?"

"_Evans_-Potter," Lily corrected.

"Now see here…" James glowered.

"I shall debrief the Order at my next opportunity," Dumbledore said serenely. "Now then, let us regain our senses for a moment and recall that we are, in fact, trespassing in the Department of Mysteries."

The wizards and witches reluctantly fell silent.

"What has happened to the Death Eaters we captured?" the Headmaster prompted.

Remus' face suddenly fell. "That's what I was about to tell you, before I got… er… distracted."

"What can I say?" Lily quipped. "I'm irresistible."

"That's _my _line!" Sirius protested.

"Get over it," Harry advised.

"We had them tied up and disarmed," Mad-Eye cut in darkly, "when the Dark Lord showed up out of nowhere."

"_What_?" Harry gaped.

"Stop interrupting, Potter," Moody snapped. "He vanished the ropes and cast some sort of blindness hex on us. We didn't want to start casting spells at random, in case we accidentally hit our allies, so we had to dispel the hex instead-"

"-and by the time we'd managed it, You-Know-Who and his followers were gone," Remus concluded.

"Oh, and we found a bunch of bloodstains in one of the connecting rooms," Tonks added. "Anyone know when that happened?"

Harry stared innocently at the ceiling.

"Later," Dumbledore pronounced. "Don't trouble yourselves over this event. The Dark Lord is extremely powerful; it is my own fault for not remaining with you, instead of gallivanting after Mister Potter."

All eyes turned to Harry.

"Yeah," Tonks said suspiciously. "Why _did _you come here anyway, Harry?"

.:This would be a good time to lie:. Decimare prompted. .:And nothing about alien abduction. I almost died of shame when you tried that last time:.

'You can't die, you're an inanimate object,' Harry responded automatically.

.:You need a new comeback:. the snake declared. .:Something more befitting your level of intelligence and wit. I'd go with something along the lines of 'But of course, Decimare, I will do whatever you say, as I am an incompetent buffoon who could not find my own country on a labeled map':.

"I…" Harry then recalled that practically everyone he'd encountered today seemed to have the same opinion on his reasons for this suicidal escapade. Might as well fulfill their expectations. "I heard about some prophecy with my name on it," he explained, doing his best to look very serious and convincing. "I was tired of being ignored and lied to-"

At this point he directed a very real glare at Dumbledore, who was once again avoiding looking at him in the eyes. _As if Voldemort will possess me just by looking at Dumbledore_, Harry scoffed.

.:You:. Decimare proclaimed, .:are an idiot:.

"-so I decided to come down to the Department of Mysteries and see for myself what my future holds." Harry concluded his little spiel by adding defiantly, "And I brought my friends because they wouldn't let me go without them, and I didn't have the patience to argue with them. I'm really irrational and angsty that way."

.:Nice finishing touch, there:. the snake snorted. .:Really leant your story an air of credibility:.

'Shut up,' Harry grumbled. 'They bought it, didn't they?'

For the first time, Dumbledore appeared anxious. "Harry, did you actually get your hands on the prophecy? Did you hear it? Where is the orb now?"

"I didn't hear it," he replied nonchalantly. "The twins destroyed it before I could."

"_Pardon_?"

"Fred and George," Harry explained. "Why do you all look so shocked?"

"Why would those idiot boys destroy such a valuable item?" Moody growled.

"I was a bit pissed off myself," he agreed readily. "But Malfoy _was _ready to kill us to get his hands on it, so I suppose in retrospect they probably had the right idea."

Dumbledore still wasn't looking Harry in the eye, but he still managed to convey his disappointment most effectively. "Harry, if you truly wished to know the contents of the prophecy, you should have come to me first. You know that I would have tried to help you in whatever way I could."

Harry had already made his point to the Headmaster; he didn't bother pointing out that Dumbledore was hardly the most trustworthy individual at the moment, avoiding his gaze and such.

'I'm really starting to wish I'd heard that prophecy,' he thought. 'It'd be nice to know what has Dumbledore so worked up.'

"Look, I was an idiot, and I won't do it again," Harry announced firmly. "Can we go back to Hogwarts, please? I want to make sure my friends are alright."

He paused. "Er… will Tristan be coming with us?"

Tristan looked highly affronted. "Gaggle of guppies!"

Lily patted him comfortingly on the head. "I can't understand him quite as well as when I _was _him, but I pretty sure he'd like to go back to Hogwarts as a student. Right, sweetheart?"

"Orange!" Tristan agreed.

"Oh, you're too adorable for words!" Lily cooed, sweeping the unflappable child into a hug.

Harry gave Tristan an uncertain look. "Now that you've separated into three people… will Tristan still be able to walk through walls and perform all sorts of supposedly impossible magic?"

Tristan slipped from Lily's embrace, turned around, and crashed straight into the nearest wall.

"Doesn't look like it," Lily shrugged. "I'll keep an eye on him; it's the least I can do for unintentionally creating him."

"Poodle!" Tristan squealed happily, latching his arms around Lily's legs. The redhead grinned and patted his shoulder affectionately.

"The Ministry will arrive shortly to investigate this disturbance," Dumbledore proclaimed. "We should make ourselves scarce before this happens."

"I'll accompany Potter to the Floo," Moody declared, seizing Harry by the arm.

"Ow," he protested ineffectively.

"Everyone else, Apparate on three," Dumbledore continued. "One… two…" A deafening pop blasted through the room as about fifteen witches and wizards Disapparated simultaneously.

"Well, that's that," Moody growled, yanking Harry towards the door. "You need to get back safely so Dumbledore can punish you."

"Yeah, sure," he grumbled, letting himself be dragged from the room. As they marched back through the Department of Mysteries, though, Harry had a very unsettling thought.

'Decimare… where's Tristan?'

The snake spirit sighed. .:It appears that your insane little friend has not lost all his rather unique abilities:.

'What, you mean he Apparated with everyone else?' Harry demanded.

.:No, I mean I witnessed him sink through the floor in the flurry of the Order's departure:. Decimare hissed.

Harry groaned. 'Bugger.'


	44. Return to Hogwarts

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except, of course, my darling Tristan.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Forty-Four: Return to Hogwarts

Their escape from the Ministry of Magic was… less than desirable from Harry's view point. Just as he and Moody had stepped through the Department of Mysteries door into the hallway, the Minister for Magic himself rounded the corner. As Fudge processed the sight and started to flush with anger at the sight of Harry Potter in a supposedly forbidden corridor, Moody had done some quick thinking. Before Harry knew it, his hands were shackled behind his back, and he was shoved down to the floor in front of the scarred Auror, a wand to his head.

"Minister," Moody said gruffly, poking the bewildered boy with his steel-toed boot for emphasis. "I caught Potter here trying to break into the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Consider him apprehended."

The Minister looked as baffled as Harry felt. "Why on earth would he do that?"

"I… uh… wanted to yell at the Department chief over the restriction on the… er… importation of flying carpets?" Harry tried.

Moody nudged him.

"Because I'm really irrational and angsty, like the typical teenager that I am," Harry added quickly. He was getting very good at portraying the archetypal melodramatic and rebellious teen, if he did say so himself. "Oh, the angst!"

This time Moody kicked him, so Harry took the hint and stopped talking.

"But…" Fudge said slowly, twiddling his lime green bowler in his pudgy hands. "What on earth was the boy doing down here, Alastor?"

"Got lost, I expect," Moody shrugged. "You've said it yourself, sir. Kids these days couldn't find their way out of a teacup."

Back on a topic that he knew well – which seemed to be rather illogical metaphors – Fudge puffed up imperiously and fixed the rather annoyed Harry with a glare. "Lost or not, young man, you should know better than to sneak into the Ministry and expect to get away with it!"

"I'm a bad, bad person," Harry agreed. "Why don't you send me back to Hogwarts and let Dumbledore give me detentions for the rest of the year?"

Luckily for them, Fudge was ridiculously easy to manipulate. Except on the things that really mattered, of course, like the fact that Lord Voldemort had returned.

"Quite so," the Minister pronounced grandly, gesturing for Moody to drag the boy to his feet. The Auror did so, with rather more pain on Harry's part than the poor boy thought was strictly necessary. "You take him straight to Hogwarts, Moody, and tell Albus that I expect the boy to be _severely _punished."

Moody grunted what was probably an acknowledgement, seized Harry by the arm, and yanked him off down the hallway. Fudge watched them go with a pleased expression.

"And if you ever try something like this again, Mister Potter, I'll have you thrown in Azkaban!" the Minister called after the departing pair.

The Auror clapped a hand over his charge's mouth before Harry could shout back a scathing retort. "Keep walking, Potter. We aren't home free yet."

Harry groaned and obediently trudged along beside the extraordinarily intimidating man. _Well, _he thought glumly, _this little adventure was a complete failure._

.:Oh, cheer up:. Decimare hissed shortly. .:The shield is still safe, Hogwarts is still standing, and you got to have a go at eviscerating the Dark Lord's right hand lady. All things considered, this embarrassing episode could have gone a lot worse:.

'That _is _true,' Harry allowed, brightening slightly. 'Everyone got through safely, Voldemort's probably going to be a little more cautious, and the prophecy is now safely out of his greedy clutches!'

.:And you didn't even get anyone killed!:. the snake spirit agreed with false enthusiasm.

'Hey, that's right!'

Decimare sank his tiny obsidian teeth into Harry's finger. .:You _did _get someone killed, you incompetent child! If Tristan hadn't turned out to be an aberration of all things good and holy, you would have been responsible for his death!:.

'Although seeing as you are also an aberration of all things good and holy, I'm not so sure I should be listening to a word you say,' Harry retorted. 'I can make my own analysis of past events, thank you very much.'

.:Says the poster child of recklessness, short-sighted-ness, and brainlessness:.

'That didn't even make sense,' Harry complained.

.:Exactly:. the snake responded smugly.

And just as always, despite his best efforts, Harry had lost another argument with the ancient snake spirit.

'One of these days…' he trailed off menacingly.

.:You'll what?:. Decimare taunted. .:Present a factually and logically valid argument that I won't be able to tear apart within seconds?:.

'… that's exactly what I was going to say,' Harry sighed. 'Dammit! How do I keep losing?'

.:Life isn't about who wins or loses:. the snake hissed.

'It's about how you play the game.'

.:Well, no wonder you have no idea what's going on in your lessons, if you're playing games instead of studying:.

'It's an expression, Decimare!'

.:Life isn't about who wins or loses:. Decimare continued. .:It's how many people you can murder along the way:.

'… I hate you.'

The snake hissed contentedly. .:It's about time:.

'Dammit, Decimare!'

.:oOo:.

Due to Dumbledore's apparent inability to look Harry directly in the eye, his subsequent lecture upon their return to Hogwarts was rather lost on the exhausted young teenager.

After mumbling his apologies to the Headmaster, who rewarded him with several months of detention, Harry escaped the room before James and Sirius could track him down for a follow-up lecture. Two staircases and a secret passage later, Harry was at the hospital wing.

Peering cautiously around the corner of the doorway, Harry spotted his friends occupying the beds at the far end of the room. Checking to make sure that Madam Pomfrey was nowhere in sight, Harry hurried over.

"Harry!" Ginny squealed, lunging from her bed to fling her arms around the boyfriend she had half-expected to return to Hogwarts in a body bag. An instant later her broken ankle gave out, and Harry quickly scooped up the girl and deposited her back in bed before she damaged the limb even more.

"Be careful," he scolded. Ginny seemed too elated to care. "I'm fine," he amended, "and I'm glad you made it back in one piece."

"Did Dumbledore find you alright?" Hermione asked anxiously, still very pale from her chest injury. "I directed him as best I could…"

"What about your dad and Sirius?" Ron demanded. "Last I saw they were squaring off against _all _the Death Eaters-"

"Everyone's fine!" Harry exclaimed, feeling rather harassed by the barrage of questions.

"Then tell us what happened!" Hermione exclaimed.

"And don't leave anything out," Fred added.

"Or we'll kidnap Ginny and hold her hostage," George explained.

"Why would you do that?" Harry asked blankly.

The twins exchanged a worried look. "Hit your head a bit hard, did you?" Fred said delicately.

"Had a little too much of the…" George made a drinky-drinky motion with his hand.

"I mean, you can't hold her hostage," a mildly irritated Harry interrupted them, "as she's your sister."

"Piffle," Fred dismissed instantly. "Never seen her in my life."

"I'm right here," Ginny said brightly. "Hello!"

"Well, bugger me!" George exclaimed. "Ginny! You're a sight for sore eyes!"

Harry jumped to his feet. "Alright. All Weasleys are now quiet for the next five minutes. Got it?"

Ron cast him a hurt look. "Bloody hell, mate, what did I do to you?"

"Except Ron," Harry amended. Then he did a double take and rounded on the twins. "Hang on, what are you two doing here? You weren't injured!"

"Neither were you, yet here you are," Fred shrugged.

Harry glanced down at his blood-stained, bruised, scratched, and overall quite obviously injured body. "… never mind," he sighed. "Look, you want to hear the story or not?"

"Tell us!" Ginny urged.

Forty minutes later, Harry had successfully conveyed the gist of what occurred. He covered his sword fight with Bellatrix, Tristan's impromptu death, and of course the subsequent resurrection of both the strange little child and his long-dead mother.

"And what about you two?" Harry demanded after the appropriate cheers and congratulations on Lily's revival had been vocalized. Fred and George stared innocently at the ceiling. "Don't give me that," he snapped. "Where did you go? And why did you smash the prophecy?"

"We didn't tell Dumbledore," Fred told him.

"So we certainly aren't about to tell you," George shrugged.

"Cheers," the twins chorused and started to rise from their seats.

They didn't get far. Growling, Harry seized the twins by their ties and yanked them back down onto their wooden stools. "Talk," he commanded.

The twins exchanged a sorrowful look. "Fine, we'll talk," Fred sighed. "You tell them, George."

"We time travelled," George said bluntly.

A confused silence blanketed the room.

"I'm sorry," Hermione finally said, "but could you possibly elaborate on that?"

"We… acquired a time turner, and we time travelled," Fred elaborated obligingly.

"What, so you went back in time to tell your past selves to break the prophecy?" Hermione demanded, struggling to make sense of their plan.

Fred and George's faces lit up. "Sure!" George said agreeably. "That's exactly what we did. Once we found out what happened when Harry didn't give up the orb, we went back in time to tell ourselves to fix things."

Fred nodded along seriously.

Hermione eyed them suspiciously. "I'm not certain that your story makes sense. How did you get your hands on a time turner? When did you use it? How badly would things have turned out if you didn't destroy the prophecy?"

"The end of the world," the twins chorused.

The Gryffindor quartet exchanged horrified looks. "Are you serious?" Ron demanded.

"No, he's in the Headmaster's office," Fred cracked. George nudged him pointedly.

"Well," George announced, climbing to his feet. "Lovely chat. Must be going."

"Toodles," Fred quipped.

"Hang on a--" Harry trailed off with a sigh as the twins disappeared. "How do they even do that? You can't apparate in Hogwarts."

"Must've been hanging out with Tristan," Ron shrugged. "You said he always pulls crazy stuff like that."

"Tristan was a bizarre combination of dead human and poltergeist," Hermione lectured. "He's normal now that he's… er… un-separated his various aspects from each other."

"Yeah…" Harry winced. "Except I saw him sink through a floor about three hours ago."

"Lovely," Ginny laughed. "I'm glad. He's so much fun."

"And by fun, you mean annoying," Harry corrected.

"That too."

Hermione propped herself into a more vertical position and fixed Harry with a stern look. "And what about your mother, Harry? You don't seem all that thrilled by her miraculous resurrection."

Harry rubbed the back of his neck tiredly. "Honestly? I know I should be elated, and I am, but I just can't make myself jump up and down with delight. I think Dad's resurrection jaded me."

"Trust James Potter to take the excitement out of returning from the dead," a new voice said dryly. The quartet noted with little surprise the appearance of their sallow-skinned Potions master in the Hospital wing.

"Did you want something?" Harry asked rather rudely. Hermione didn't even send him a horrified look. They were all too tired by that point to care about being respectful towards their vindictive teacher.

"The Headmaster asked me to inform you that Potter and Black wish to see you in their chambers," Snape sneered. "No doubt they will congratulate you for nearly killing off your entire circle of minions."

"You mean friends?" Ginny queried innocently. "Oh wait, you don't know what those are, do you?"

Harry, Ron, and Hermione all gaped at the ginger-haired girl. "Er… she didn't mean that, Professor," Harry said quickly, but Snape did not lash out like they'd expected.

"Detention, Miss Weasley," the Potions master pronounced. He turned and swooped out of the room, but not before Harry caught the subtle tightening of the professor's thin lips.

"Gin…" Harry trailed off.

"Don't give me that, he deserved it for calling us minions," Ginny snapped.

"He seemed almost…" Hermione was at a loss for words. "I don't suppose 'sad' is the right word."

"Serves him right," Ron snorted. "He's made us miserable enough times. Turn about is fair play."

"Of course it is," she agreed absently. "I just…"

"Look," Harry cut in. "We're all tired and over-analyzing everything. I'm going to go find Madam Pomfrey and see about getting some of these cuts mended. You three get some sleep, alright?"

Luna cast him a dreamy wave from the corner of the room. He hadn't even noticed she was there. Wincing, he added, "You as well, Luna."

"Oh, I'm not really injured," she smiled faintly. "I just like listening to you. It must be nice, having friends to care about you."

The quartet exchanged chagrined looks. "Listen, Luna," Harry said slowly. "We may not act it, but we do care about you. You're our friend, no matter how oddly you act."

She beamed at him. "You're rather odd as well." Harry supposed it was her way of telling them she felt the same way.

"Take care, all of you," Harry told them. Bending down to press a kiss to Ginny's forehead, he gave her hand a light squeeze and stepped away from the group. "Time to find our suspiciously absent medic-witch…"

.:oOo:.

Harry peered into the common room cautiously. It appeared to be devoid of his guardians, which suited Harry just fine. "Well then," he announced, "since you're obviously not in, I'll just check back at a later date."

Two very dizzying seconds later found him flying across the room to collide with one of the cushy armchairs. Scowling, Harry whipped out his wand, only to discover two wands pointed directly at his bruised face.

"Oh." Wincing, Harry stowed the wand away and quickly straightened himself out, watching with no small amount of apprehension as his guardians fixed him with their most intimidating looks.

"Look, it isn't what you think…"

"No?" James said softly. "Because what I think is that you willingly and knowingly led you and your friends into a restricted section of the Ministry of Magic without telling anyone."

"I tried," he protested. "The teachers were at a conference! What was I supposed to do?"

"Gee, I don't know," Sirius drawled. "Tell _us_? We're only your legal guardians, after all! Far be it for us to be informed that our charge is walking into a trap!"

"Well, I didn't exactly know that going in, you see."

James gave him a disbelieving look. "Don't be daft. What else could it possibly be? What were you even doing there in the first place?"

"I…" Harry trailed off. _What do I tell them?_

.:Your friends already know the truth:. Decimare reminded him. .:Might as well let your guardians in on the secret as well:.

_Except unlike my friends, Sirius and Dad would sooner rip out Pettigrew's intestines than help him, _he countered.

.:You aren't giving them enough credit:. the snake informed him. .:They aren't completely incompetent:.

"What if I told you that Peter Pettigrew is not only repentant, but that he's abandoned Voldemort, stolen the shield of Merlin, and is now attempting to hand it over to the Light side as we speak?" Harry said in a rush.

Sirius and James glanced at each other, non-plussed.

"That's pretty low, bringing up that rat to avoid answering the question," Sirius scowled. "What were you doing at the Ministry, Harry?"

_Told you, _Harry thought.

.:Have it your way:. Decimare sighed. .:Make something ridiculously emotional up. I'd suggest playing on your lack of a decent role model and need for human companionship if I were you:.

Harry mentally rolled his eyes. _Helpful as always. Well, I did get a vision of Peter, so based off that…_

"I had a vision," he announced.

Sirius and James were immediately all ears.

"I know that it was false now, of course, but in the vision I saw Sirius in the department of Mysteries being… er…"

His guardians' faces were pale. "Being what, son?" James prodded.

"Tortured?" It was more a question than a statement, but the duo were too furious to notice.

"That _bastard_," Sirius raged. "I'm going to rip his head off, and throw it on the ground, and… and stomp on it till he's sorry!"

.:I like him:. Decimare hissed in approval.

"Not if I don't get to him first," James said darkly. "So you ran off to save him?"

"That's the short version," Harry agreed, relieved that they were buying the story. He also felt incredibly guilty and positively horrible that he was lying to them, and was about to change his mind and tell them what really happened when Sirius demanded: "Wait, if you thought I had been captured, why didn't you tell James?"

"I… er…"

.:If you're intent on lying, at least make it believable:. Decimare groaned. .:This is just painful, Master:.

"I thought you'd stop me!" he burst out. "Sirius was my only father figure until you came along, Dad, and I just knew you'd try to make me stay here while 'real adults' helped him!"

.:Blatant falsehoods mixed with actual truth:. the snake hissed happily. .:There may be hope for you yet:.

_Oh, shut up, _Harry groused. _I'm not lying. Not entirely, anyway._

James and Sirius were glaring at him again. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" Sirius bellowed. "You're a kid whether you like it or not, Harry! Leave the fighting to the adults for once in your life!"

"How can I when all you ever do is lie to me?" he shouted back, now furious with their hypocrisy.

Decimare made an incredulous noise. .:This coming from you? Mister I am incapable of telling the truth even if tortured to the point of death? Lord, Master, you have really outdone yourself this time. You won't be getting any help from me. Accusing them of hypocrisy. Honestly:. The spirit's disgusted hissing faded into the background. Harry barely noticed his departure.

"Oh, that's rich!" James snapped, unknowingly echoing Decimare's thoughts. "Maybe we keep you away from some things, Harry, but the world doesn't revolve around you! There are some things that you shouldn't, and therefore don't, know!"

"Well, by that logic, you shouldn't, and therefore didn't, know about my trip to the Ministry!" Harry countered.

"Except that you're fifteen years old, and we legally own you!" Sirius growled. "Like it or not, kid, you're underage, and until you hit 17, you do what we say, when we say it! And if we choose to keep information from you, more power to us. It does _not _go the other way!"

Harry gave him a disgusted look. "I can't believe you used to be a Marauder."

Sirius rounded on him furiously. "And just what is _that _supposed to mean?"

"Only that you're acting just as stuffy and overbearing and… and… and boring as any teacher I've ever met!"

A stunned silence blanketed the room.

"Take that back," his godfather said sternly.

"No," Harry snapped. "You are, and you know it."

They stared at each other, neither willing to give the other an inch of leeway.

James abandoned their past argument in favor of rectifying the newly developed rift between godfather and godson. He was a fairly reasonable man, after all, and despite the untruths he suspected his son was feeding him, James believed that whatever the reason, Harry had gone to the Ministry with only good intentions. If his son ever pulled anything like that again, of course, James would lock him up for the rest of his natural existence, but he decided to let the matter go. For now.

"Both of you stop glaring at each other," James ordered, stepping in between the furious pair. "Harry, you screwed up, and I'm pretty sure you know that. I'm talking about today's little debacle, _and _what you said to Sirius."

"I didn't really mean it," Harry sighed.

Sirius huffed. "Near gave me a heart attack. Imagine! Comparing me to a teacher!"

"Perish the thought," James said dryly. "Son, listen to me."

Harry reluctantly looked up at his father.

"You are lying to me about something," the Auror told his son firmly. "Don't deny it. I don't know what it is, although I'm pretty sure it has something to do with your midnight wanderings."

"You know about that?" Harry gaped before he could stop himself. "How?"

"Not telling," Sirius grinned. "If you're leaving us out of the loop, we're entitled to do the same."

"If you don't want to tell us, fine," James continued. "I may be your father, but I don't want you to hate me by abusing that fact. You've grown up without a father for fifteen years, and it's not fair of me to assume that you'd get used to trusting one so quickly."

"I do trust you!" Harry exclaimed.

"Not really," James shrugged. "You wouldn't be keeping secrets if you did."

"Everyone has secrets."

"Not of the magnitude that you're keeping," Sirius told him firmly. "Being an Animagus, now that's a secret. You've got something just as big going on, and don't think we don't know that."

"Listen…" Harry trailed off awkwardly. "I just… _can't _tell you right now. You wouldn't understand."

His father regarded him thoughtfully. "Maybe so. I'm still 20 years old, mind and body. I probably wouldn't trust myself with some of the things I know, given half the chance. And Sirius can be a bit… irrational at times."

"Hey, I'm irrational _all _the time," Sirius corrected indignantly.

Harry and James laughed, tension finally easing from the room.

"All I'm saying," James concluded. "Is that I'm behind you 100, Harry, no matter what. We both are. When you choose to share your secrets with us, we'll be there to help you."

Harry grinned at his guardians. "Thanks. You guys have no idea how much that means to me."

"Oh, I suspect we have a pretty fair idea," Sirius smirked, giving his godson a wink.

"But," James continued pleasantly, "if you ever pull something as monumentally stupid as you did today, I will personally lock you up in the deepest cellar in Potter Manor for the rest of your natural existence. Do I make myself clear?"

"Scarily so," Harry gulped.

His father smiled. "Good."

"So… we're alright, then?" he asked shakily.

"I'd say so," Sirius said, clapping Harry on the back. "You've got the detentions to punish you physically, and we've definitely accomplished the necessary mental harassment, so I'd say you're free to go."

Harry beat a hasty retreat before Sirius and James could come up with something even more sinister to say than they already had.

.:oOo:.

As soon as Sirius had ascended the staircase to his bedroom, James turned expectantly towards his own staircase. Sure enough, his recently resurrected wife appeared at its base a moment later.

Arching an eyebrow gracefully, Lily glided over to the couch he was sprawled across and sat primly at the far end. "He's lying to you, and you aren't doing anything about it," she told him seriously. "I've been watching that boy his entire life, James. You may be winning points by letting him do as he pleases, but he's going to get himself killed at this rate."

James cast the redhead a helpless look. "What am I supposed to do?" he complained, swiveling around and planting his head firmly on her lap. Her fingers slipped easily into his tousled hair, and it was as if their fourteen-year separation had never occurred. If only for a moment.

"Well, his friends obviously know," she mused, emerald eyes glinting in the firelight. "Tristan knew, but I can barely remember anything from the last few months."

Twisting his head towards her, James said dryly, "Yeah, you want to explain Tristan to me?"

She gave him an innocent look. "Whatever do you mean, husband dearest?"

"At the New Years Gala," he said accusingly. "Tristan ran up to me and hit on me! That _was _you, wasn't it?"

Lily blinked. "I… think so…"

They stared at each other.

"Alright," she giggled, smoothing his hair fondly. "That was me."

"And his rendezvous with those three Hufflepuff girls in the closet?" James pressed.

Lily gazed at him blankly. "How did you find out about that?"

"_You _were the one waving at the camera, you tell me!"

"Tristan waved at the camera," she corrected firmly. "Most of the time our strange little creation was in control of the body, not Peeves or I. And stop ducking the question, James!"

Rising, James clasped his wife's hand and drew her towards the portrait hole. Leading her to the nearby hidden Sentinel entrance, he triggered the door mechanism and waved an introductory hand. The lights flickered on, revealing the small room packed from floor to ceiling with monitors and display screens and all manner of magically enhanced surveillance technology.

"Sentinel," he explained grandly, a grin of pure child-like joy on his face. "We have every inch of Hogwarts monitored from this room."

Lily peered at the screens in obvious fascination. She punched his shoulder with an amused laugh. "I've got to admit, you've outdone yourself on this one."

"Sirius helped," James said modestly. "Some."

"I don't see the Chamber of Secrets on these screens," Lily noted. "Or the Room of Requirements."

James shrugged. "We can't get into the Chamber, and the Room of Requirements is too magical to pin down on camera."

His wife suppressed a knowing grin.

"What?" he demanded indignantly.

"Honestly," she sighed. "Where does Harry go all the time? Can't you see him on your screens?"

"Well, he always disappears, doesn't he?" James demanded.

"Because of the invisibility cloak?"

That one stumped him. "I have no idea. Maybe? He tends to just go off camera and not come back for hours at a time."

"Well," Lily said reasonably, "if he isn't using the cloak, then I submit he's simply going to a room that you don't have monitored. Assuming the only ones you don't have covered are the Chamber and the Room of Requirement, he's probably going to one of the two."

"The Room of the Requirement is on the seventh floor," James said slowly. "He's nowhere near there when he vanishes."

They stared at each other.

"What's he doing in the Chamber of Secrets?" they chorused in astonishment.

Tristan swiveled around dramatically in Sentinel room's high-backed twirly chair.

"Dead men tell no tales," he explained with an evil grin.

Lily sighed and held back her irate husband, who had lunged at the first-year the moment he appeared. "Stop being unnecessarily sinister," she scolded the Hufflepuff. "I made you, you little brat. What do you know?"

The rosy-cheeked little boy adopted an innocent expression. "Little birds must eventually leave the nest."

"Can I hit him now?" James begged.

"Hush," his wife scolded. Frowning, Lily fixed the boy with a stern look. "Tristan, you will tell me right now if Harry's been spending time in the Chamber of Secrets."

The child in question suddenly screamed and pointed at the monitors. In the instant that the two adults' attentions were momentarily distracted, he vanished without a trace.

"I can see how he was created from you," James snorted. "He's absolutely unfathomable."

Across the castle, Harry woke from his troubled sleep with a jolt. Ron, awoken by his friend's own return to consciousness, demanded sleepily, "What is it?"

Harry rubbed his eyes, face set in a troubled expression. "I could have sworn I heard my father crying out in pain… but then suddenly silenced."

Ron stared at his friend. "Harry, mate, it was just a dream. Go back to sleep."

The black-haired boy reluctantly returned to the smothering embrace of his pillows. "I suppose. There's no other possible explanation, right?"

"Right," Ron agreed firmly. "Night, Harry."

"Night Ron."

.:oOo:.


	45. Mongolian Marauders

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except Tristan.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Forty-Five: Mongolian Marauders

When Lily Potter invited her son to spend a nice, relaxing day with her to catch up on all the time they'd spent apart, Harry was absolutely delighted. Had he known that the true purpose of the meeting was for Lily to use her motherly wiles and figure out why her son was sneaking into the Chamber of Secrets at night, he might have been a bit more reluctant. Luckily, Harry hadn't a clue about any of this, so the next morning he bounded from bed bright and early to go spend a whole day with his beloved, formerly deceased mother.

She met him in the Great Hall at an obscenely early hour, mainly to avoid the gawking crowd of students that would inevitably appear when news of her resurrection got out. As Harry approached the Great Hall doors, an intense feeling of terror suddenly washed over him.

.:What now?:. Decimare groaned. .:Misplaced your hero's handbook again, have you? Terror is reserved for facing Dark Lords and irate girlfriends, not your _mother_:.

'What if I make a bad impression?' Harry demanded, suddenly jerking a hand upwards to flatten his hair. Since he'd spiked it that morning, the action resulted in a strange, half-squished look that actually wasn't all that unattractive, although certainly not what he'd been going for.

.:Well, with that hairstyle, you're fairly likely to do so:. the snake spirit snorted.

'I'm going in,' Harry decided, squaring his shoulders and facing the doors bravely. 'She's my mother, she loves me unconditionally.'

.:Plus she's been watching every move you've made for the last 14 years:. Decimare hissed dryly. .:So she's probably had enough time to come to terms with your chronic stupidity:.

'Shut up.'

Harry slipped into the Great Hall, and immediately spied his mother's brilliant red hair from across the hall. It also helped that she was the only person in the entire room. He attempted to project a casual aura as he strolled over to her, which was quite successful, and moments later he was treated to Lily's brilliant smile and a welcoming hug.

"Harry!" his mother exclaimed, clasping his shoulders as she observed him critically. "You look terrified, dear."

Stumped for a response, Harry decided to compensate by jabbing his own eye as he attempted to readjust his non-existent glasses.

"I'm not going to yell at you, or disown you," Lily told him with a thoroughly amused smirk. "You look exactly like James when he's done something ridiculously foolish and is about to tell me of it."

"Well, I did almost get everyone I know brutally murdered," Harry defended. "I'd say that's a good excuse for being a bit uneasy."

"You also brought me back to life," she reminded him, "saving me from an utterly bizarre half-life, and somehow forcing the creation of an entirely new being in the process."

"Well," Harry flushed. "You're welcome, I guess."

Lily laughed and hugged her son again. "Even though I've been watching you for your whole life, it's so much better being here in person."

"I missed you," he told her earnestly.

"You never knew me," she responded with a sad smile. Then she clapped her hands together loudly. "But enough of that! We're both alive, young, and in our prime! Let's get this day started!"

Rather taken aback by her go-get-'em attitude, Harry stumbled to keep up as his mother marched towards the exit. When they left the castle and started on a beeline for the lake, Harry inquired, "So what exactly are we doing today?"

Lily beamed at him, twirled around, and collapsed with a delighted sigh on the frost-covered ground. "Whatever we want! Today it's just you and me. James got you for almost a year, and now it's my turn."

"Er… that's great, Mum, but isn't it kind of cold to be out here?" Harry said cautiously, eyeing the white ground with a mistrustful look.

She stared at him blankly for a moment, before reaching for his wand. Her own wand was currently in the possession of one Tristan Nilme, who had as of yet neglected to return the device to its owner. Lily flicked the wand sharply, then handed it back to Harry. Warmth seeped through his body a moment later.

"We haven't learned that one yet," he said rather abashedly.

Lily laughed. "Good try. You learned that in second year, and don't you try to deny it. Not to scare you, but your mother is a fair hand at Charms, so you'd better brush up on them if you want to have a hope of keeping up."

Harry was officially terrified of his entirely unthreatening, petite little mother. "I'll get right on that."

"Oh dear, I've frightened you again," she sighed. "Say! Why don't we go somewhere more comfy? Then we can play the getting-to-know-you game without interruption."

Lily stuck out a hand to her son, who dutifully pulled his mother to her feet. Planting a kiss on his unsuspecting head, Lily grabbed his arm and steered him back towards the castle. An angelic expression appearing on her face, Lily said lightly, "So, Hogwarts has probably changed since I went here. Where's a good, comfy, secluded place that people rarely frequent?"

"Er… the Gryffindor Common Room?" Harry suggested, not quite sure what to make of her abrupt topic change.

"Too crowded," Lily declared, waving a hand dismissively.

"Room of-"

"I don't like the Room of Requirement," she announced, which was of course a complete lie, although Harry was too distracted by his mother being alive to notice.

"Sirius and Dad's room?" he tried desperately.

"Good Lord no," Lily gasped. "I told you, today is _my _day with you. James can go do all that guy stuff with you later."

"Guy stuff?"

"Oh, you know," she rambled, "playing sports, ogling girls, spitting on things…"

"Hey now," Harry protested, "that's not entirely fair..."

They reached the main entrance of Hogwarts and proceeded inside. Stopping in the middle of the entry hall, Lily fixed her son with an expectant look. "So? There must be _somewhere _we can go to chat."

'What do I say?' Harry demanded urgently of Decimare.

.:Oh, she's good:. Decimare chortled, completely unhelpfully. .:I had wondered whether this would be the case. Memory and possession have such a fluctuating relationship:.

'And what does that have to do with my problem?' he snapped. 'The only place I know of that's completely secret is…'

.:Just take her there:. the snake sighed. .:Trust me, it will be a lot easier if you do:.

Harry figured it out before the snake had to spell it out for him. His intense feeling of pride quickly succumbed to panic. 'Are you saying that she _knows _about the Chamber of Secrets?'

.:Well, she _was _Tristan for quite a while, and he has definitely been in the Chamber once or twice:. Decimare shrugged. .:You can draw your own conclusions:.

"I think I know a place," Harry announced.

'If she already knows, there's not much point in pretending otherwise,' he rationalized.

"Is it secluded?" Lily pressed.

Now that he understood what she was trying to do, Harry strangely felt more in control of the situation. His confidence immediately rose, and suddenly he was back to his normal self. Decimare gave a contented hiss and retreated to the edges of Harry's mind.

"It's the Chamber of Secrets, actually," he said mildly, as if it were no big deal. "You might have heard of it before – secret chamber constructed by the evil Salazar Slytherin before he abandoned the school and turned to a life of the Dark Arts? Charming place, really, except for the resident basilisk, which can be quite ornery if you catch it in the wrong mood."

Lily was completely taken aback. This was more due to the fact that her supposedly secretive son had fully opened up to her with only the tiniest provocation than the revelation of his intimate knowledge of the Chamber.

"Since I'm the only parselmouth in England – always excepting Voldemort – and only parselmouths can open the damn thing, I'd say it's about as secluded as you can get," he concluded brightly.

He then discovered that his mother was rather quick on the uptake.

"Sounds lovely," Lily exclaimed, apparently perfectly at ease with the suggestion. She started off towards the grand staircase, twiddling her fingers for Harry to follow. "You know, I've always wanted to see what a secret chamber looks like. I'm interested to see what you've done with the place. I was always a throw pillow kind of girl, but James likes the old-fashioned, furs and mahogany look, so it will be interesting to see which you've gone for."

To her delight, her babbling did not faze Harry in the slightest.

"It's more a mix of art deco and classical Greek," he described, catching up to her. "It's actually quite cozy, so long as you ignore the eerie green lighting and occasional slime puddles…"

"You should try Milfred's Magical Mess Mutilator," Lily gushed. "It dissolves most anything, although for some reason it mutates pumpkin juice into a purple, sentient life form. No one has yet figured out why."

"I've just stuck to vanishing them," Harry shrugged. Neither seemed to care that their conversation had taken a decidedly absurd turn.

"Oh, you can vanish things, can you?" his mother exclaimed. "That's very good, I didn't get to that point till at least third year, you know, but of course our classes were structured very differently then…"

"You learned to vanish in your _third year_?" he demanded, appalled.

"Well," she said modestly, "technically no, but I always liked to do a little extra reading now and then."

Harry concluded that his mother was rather like an older, more eccentric version of Hermione. "You should meet my friends," he declared. "There's one in particular that I think you'll get along with famously…"

By the time they reached the second floor bathroom, Harry was firmly convinced that Lily Potter was the coolest mother in the entire world.

"… so you _hexed _him?" Harry demanded, appalled. "But Dumbledore was standing right there!"

"He accidentally dropped his spectacles just as I raised my wand," his mother laughed. "Dumbledore has always been of the opinion that Sirius requires frequent discipline."

"I can't believe he enchanted your underwear to do a can-can in the middle of the Great Hall," Harry sighed, shaking his head. "Why didn't Dad murder him?"

"Fifth year," Lily explained. "I still hated him at the time."

"Well, if he helped Sirius do that, I can see why," he snorted.

Striding into the bathroom, Harry hissed out the password and affected an overly dramatic pose as the sink sank away beneath them. "I had to clean it up a bit, or else you'd be covered with slime in about five seconds," he bragged.

Lily peered into the hole with a distasteful expression. "Are you sure the whole thing is clean? These clothes are dry cleaned, you know."

Harry responded by leaping into the pipe.

"I'll take that as a yes," she laughed, jumping in after her son.

A good two minutes of slipping and sliding later, they shot out into the entry chamber, now mercifully devoid of rodent bones.

"Now, you have to promise not to tell Dad or Sirius about this," Harry instructed his mother sternly. "The Chamber's not even on their radar, and I don't want it to be."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Lily murmured.

"What?"

"Lovely décor," she covered with a grin. "Very… medieval torture chamber."

Her son cast the redhead an appalled look. "It's just flagstone walls and floor, Mum. I don't think that's comparable to a torture chamber."

Lily breezed right by that one, as Harry noticed she had a tendency of doing. "So show me this so-called secret chamber of yours."

He dutifully did so, and Lily was appropriately impressed. It was hard not to be, when, after sliding down a mile high tunnel that wasn't supposed to exist, walking down a long, dingy stone corridor that wasn't supposed to exist, one emerged into a mind-bogglingly humungous room with towering marble columns, endless flagstone floors, and an absolutely massive statue of a dead dark lord that was also, incidentally, not supposed to exist.

"It's rather large," was her first comment.

Perhaps not so impressive after all.

"Er… yeah, I suppose," Harry blinked.

"Very impressive, though," she continued, reassuring her son that the Chamber was in fact as stupendously fantastic as he'd always assumed. "I like what you've done with the lighting. Brings a sort of jazzy feel to the place."

"Jazzy?" he said.

"You should get one of those enchanted orchestras," his mother enthused. "It would really liven the place up."

Harry was having trouble following her trains of thought, so he decided to reinforce his earlier point. "Mum, you _won't _tell Dad or Sirius about this, right?"

Lily laughed, and placed her hands reassuringly on his shoulders. "Harry, I promise that I will not tell them _anything _that they don't already know. Although, when your father starts in with those amazingly talented hands of his, I'm not sure I'll be able to contain myself-"

"Mum!" Harry shouted, disgusted. "I don't want to know about my parents doing… you know, _that_!"

She burst out laughing, at his expense, which also seemed to happen a lot. "Honey, a massage. James took a masseuse course back when we were going to Hogwarts, and don't ask me why."

Harry flushed. "I knew that."

.:You are an idiot:. Decimare pronounced.

.:oOo:.

As the weeks of January sped by, Harry discovered that having a life-threatening adventure at a time _other _than June was a refreshing change. When an adventure happened at the end of the school year, after all, there was almost no time to reflect on the consequences of his actions before he was whisked away to the Dursleys for the summer. In January, however, Harry had plenty of time to seek out the various people he inevitably endangered with each yearly expedition and make sure they were all mentally and emotionally sound.

One thing that Harry was having trouble with was the concerned conversations he seemed to always be having with Ginny. Despite the fact that he had saved her life in his second year, she simply couldn't understand how he was able to walk away from a near-death experience without a care in the world.

Harry had tried to explain it to her, but he just came off sounding like a jerk. "It wasn't that big a deal," was his first attempt.

"We almost died!" she had shrieked. "I don't understand how you can take such serious things so lightly!"

"It's like this," he'd added hastily. "I nearly get myself blown up or torn to pieces at least once a year, sometimes more. That's why this whole 'near-death' thing really doesn't bother me."

"You're just saying that because you have a death wish," she'd accused.

"What?" Harry demanded. "I do not!"

"You think you're bound to die eventually, and so you purposely ignore the severity of the situations you're put in so you don't terrify yourself!" his girlfriend exclaimed.

"That's not it at all!" he'd declared. Ginny usually stormed off in a huff at that point.

Luckily for the young couple, Ginny quickly discovered that she wasn't going to get a different answer from her boyfriend, and soon laid off the questioning. Harry tried explaining it to her several more times, but she just didn't understand. He supposed that even though Voldemort had nearly killed her in her first year, she'd been too young to fully understand.

_When she has a psychopath doing everything in his fairly incompetent power to kill her, she'll understand_, he told himself.

.:Speaking of incompetence:. Decimare piped up .:You'll want to watch your back. The Dark Lord was humiliated at the Ministry, and he's going to want revenge for you stabbing the crazy female Death Eater:.

Harry had taken the sword's words to heart, but by the time January rolled into February, the Dark Lord still hadn't made a move. Assuming that Voldemort was simply biding his time, Harry settled for going to classes with his friends, getting glowered at by Snape and Umbridge every time they laid eyes on him, and generally enjoying his irritatingly complicated life.

The one thing he took complete pleasure from were his visits with his mother. After the Ministry incident, and Lily's horrendous breach of Chamber of Secrets security, Lily and James had disappeared off the face of the planet for two weeks, and no one would tell him where they had gone. Actually, one person had volunteered some information, but Harry was left as out-of-the-loop as ever.

"Where did my parents go?" Harry demanded of Sirius sullenly. The Animagus was lounging in his favorite crimson armchair in his apartment, nursing a steaming mug of cocoa in his hands.

Sitting up straight, Sirius gave Harry a nervous look and said slowly, "You remember what I was telling you a few months ago?"

"Not particularly," Harry blinked. "You've told me a lot of things, most of which I have spent many hours trying desperately to forget."

"About the birds and the bees," his godfather elaborated delicately.

Harry cast him a puzzled look. "Er… yeah, I remember that conversation, but I don't see what birds or bees have to do with my parents' disappearance…"

Sirius set his hot cocoa aside and put on his most grave expression. "I clearly didn't explain things well the last time," he sighed. "Alright, listen carefully, because I'm not sure how many more times I can give you this talk without dying of embarrassment."

Harry, unable to understand why on earth his godfather was so obsessed with birds and bees, listened in complete bewilderment as the man launched into another incomprehensible speech.

"You see," the Animagus began, "when a girl bird and a boy bird really like each other, they fall in love, which naturally leads to marriage."

"What I don't understand," Harry interrupted, "is how do birds get married? They don't have priests or anything, do they?"

"And with marriage," Sirius plowed forward, "comes a certain… physical attraction. The male might like the female's… er… wings, for example, and because he likes her so much, he'll want to get close to her. And when they get so close to each other that they become almost one person… they make a little baby bird that looks just like them."

Harry gave his godfather an annoyed look. "This doesn't explain where my parents are."

In Harry's mind, Decimare gave a hiss of complete disbelief. .:Lord, Master, even you can't possibly be _this _dense:.

'What do you mean?' he demanded. 'The man is talking about birds when I'm asking where my parents are!'

.:The birds and the bees are a metaphor for sex, you imbecile!:. Decimare snapped. .:Since your godfather can't say it, I will. Your parents have been apart for the last fourteen years, so they've gone to some deserted island and are probably going to spend the next two weeks engaged in passionate and possibly kinky love-making! Is that clear enough for you?:.

Harry turned an impossibly pale shade of white.

Sirius sighed with relief. "Thank god. I was worried I'd have to start explaining using bees, and I don't even know if they _can _have sex."

The Animagus leapt to his feet, narrowly avoiding a powerful stinging hex from his dear godson. "You git, why didn't you just say that you were talking about sex in the first place?" Harry bellowed. "I'm a teenager, of course I know what sex is!"

To his fury, Sirius took one look at his beet-red face and collapsed on the floor in hysterical laughter. "Because it was more fun to talk in circles, of course," the Auror cackled. "Seeing your face when you finally realized what I was babbling about was absolutely priceless!"

"I hope you've taken out life insurance then," Harry snapped, cracking his knuckles menacingly. "Because you can bet you're going to need it when I'm done with you."

His godfather shifted into dog-form and dashed past Harry before he could so much as blink. Harry sighed as the man slipped through the portrait hole and out of sight, barking delightedly all the way.

"Damn him," he sighed.

.:At least you know what the birds and the bees are now:. Decimare snorted.

'Shut up,' Harry muttered.

.:Not to mention you've discovered the location of your missing parents:.

Vivid and entirely inappropriate images flashed unbidden through Harry's mind. Absolutely mortified at the thought of his parents doing… you know, Harry clapped his hands over his eyes in horror and ran from the room.

.:You'll want to keep at least one eye open so you don't smack into any…:. Decimare sighed as Harry crashed into the wall. .:Why do I even bother?:.

.:oOo:.

When Lily Potter finally graced Hogwarts with her presence, however, Harry couldn't have been happier if he tried. The woman was absolute perfection, pure and simple. Granted, he might have been a little biased, but try telling Harry that without receiving a blasting hex for your trouble.

The first time he saw her since their secret trip was, of all places, in Potions class.

Snape was at the front of the room, droning on and on about some useless yet ridiculously complex potion. Fumes from the students' cauldrons filled the air with a thick, highly unpleasant stench.

Sitting at the back of the class, Harry watched with poorly concealed boredom as Hermione and Ron labored away at their potions. He didn't even bother trying to replicate the potion outlined by his hook-nosed teacher; James and Sirius' presence at Hogwarts had so increased Snape's hatred of the pair that he had already assigned Harry a zero mark for the rest of the year.

Not that Harry was complaining. Anything he really needed to know he could learn from Hermione or Decimare, and he found that he learned potions much more easily when Snape wasn't breathing down his neck. He figured that, while getting a terrible mark was not the greatest thing in the world, acing his Potions OWL right under Snape's nose would be the greatest form of revenge known to man.

Then, just as Harry was about to resign himself to another two hours of wasted life, the dungeon door creaked open, and Lily Potter stepped into the room.

The change was incredible. Harry knew that Snape had been aware of Lily's revival, but he must not have actually seen her in person until that very moment. Before the class' astonished eyes, Snape seemed to become a different person. The look of disgust vanished from his sneering lips, his stooped stance straightened, and his eyes actually appeared to twinkle. Twinkle!

"Hello Severus," Lily said politely, inclining her head towards the shell-shocked Potions Master. "The Headmaster told me of your appointment to Potions professor and head of Slytherin House. You must be proud."

Snape took a step forward, realized he'd done so, and abruptly fixed a scowl back on his sallow features. "You look well."

Harry ignored the odd exchange completely and all but raced to his mother's side. "You might have told me you were leaving for two weeks!" he complained.

Lily seemed amused by the situation. "Severus," she directed at the Potions Master, "you'll have to forgive me. You and I have a lot of catching up to do, but my son comes first."

It was the first time Harry had ever seen Snape tongue-tied. The man obviously held an extraordinary amount of respect for Lily, because he didn't say a word as Harry was all but exempted from his class.

Smiling at her son, Lily started to turn to leave, before pausing. "You'll want to take your cauldron off the heat first," she said with a laugh. "Goodness, it's been so long since I've been in potions class. Go and put your things away, Harry, and we can go have a proper chat."

.:This should be good:. Decimare hissed suddenly.

Harry understood what he meant instantly. Time for a little payback.

"There's no need," he told his mother innocently. "I haven't got any ingredients to put away."

Lily blinked. "I've heard that you're a good student, Harry, but even Severus couldn't make a…" She glanced at the chalkboard. "… a confounding potion in less than half an hour. The stew time is over forty minutes."

Harry shrugged. "I don't really make potions anymore."

Snape slid over, smooth as a snake and twice as slippery. "The boy simply doesn't feel the need to try in my class, Lily. He seems to think potion-making beneath him."

The redhead cast a bewildered glance at her son. "I just don't see the need to brew anything," Harry said blankly, "seeing as Professor Snape gives me a zero no matter how good the potion is."

A tense and incredibly uncomfortable silence filled the room.

Lily turned piercing green eyes on the scowling Potions Master. "Out of my deep respect for you, Severus, we'll discuss this later. Come with me, Harry." Before her son could protest, she seized his arm and marched out of the room, leaving him little choice but to follow her.

"You knew Snape?" he asked before he could stop himself.

His mother didn't slow her pace. "I was his friend," she said evenly, leading him towards James and Sirius' apartments, where she had taken up residence. "Apparently that friendship did not extend to caring for my son."

Harry rubbed his neck awkwardly. "Er… he's not all that bad, Mum…"

They arrived at Sirius and James' quarters. "Let's worry about Snape later," his mother declared. "Come on, Harry, you've got a whole lifetime to tell me about, and we've only just touched the surface."

Harry spent many hours with his mother over the next few weeks, chatting, walking around the school, or simply staring into the fire enjoying each other's company. He came to realize pretty quickly why every single person who had ever met his mother spoke so highly of her. The woman was an angel.

The one thing he couldn't quite understand was her apparent attachment to Tristan. Harry could scarcely walk down the hallway with his mother without the Hufflepuff boy appearing from nowhere to cling to her hand.

.:The child was created from your mother's mind:. Decimare hissed. .:His obsession with his creator seems perfectly natural:.

'It's unnatural,' Harry groused.

.:And you're a hypocrite:. the snake responded primly.

He'd tried to ask his mother about it, but she was remarkably silent on the subject.

"He's just the cutest thing," Lily cooed, hugging the child to her.

"Mum," Harry had said patiently, "Why do you put up with him? Tristan talks in circles and doesn't make any sense at all!"

His mother had merely flashed him a smile and continued babbling to the Hufflepuff boy.

In fact, Harry was getting rather annoyed by the apparent lack of interest in Tristan Nilme that everyone at the school was showing. The child was an abomination of nature! He had been born from the twisted psyche of the merged minds of an insane poltergeist and dead woman, and had somehow broken free from them to become his own being.

'Not to mention he's clearly retained most of his absurdly powerful abilities,' he groused to Decimare one afternoon.

.:Your whining is growing tiresome:. the snake spirit had responded primly. .:Desist:.

Harry had finally decided to follow Decimare's advice.

'After all,' he told the snake brightly, 'if anyone would know about weird, abnormal beings, it would be you.'

The resulting bite marks on his hand drew a lot of odd looks the next day.

.:oOo:.

Sirius and James were wandering the halls in early February, discussing matters of security. While Hogwarts was definitely as secure as castles came, they were more than a bit worried about their godson. Strolling down a random corridor, they came upon the Weasley twins in a rather compromising position. That is to say, the ginger-haired duo were hovering around a rather imposing black cabinet, covered from head to toe with soot.

"I don't want to know," James announced before the twins could start stammering an excuse.

"We've locked up our beloved classmate in this cabinet," Fred explained without preamble.

"He was insulting our friend," George added.

"He needed to be punished," they chorused solemnly.

The adults exchanged looks of poorly suppressed amusement.

"Is this beloved classmate a Slytherin?" Sirius asked innocently.

The twins beamed at him. "Naturally," they chimed.

"Oh, well, carry on by all means," the Animagus said obligingly.

As Fred and George proceeded to jam an iron bar through the cabinet's handles and transfigure it to match the object's ebony hue, James had an unwelcome surge of conscience.

"You know…" he began guiltily.

Sirius snorted and waved his friend's concern away. "It's just a Slytherin, Prongs, stop being so responsible."

"We're supposed to be protecting these students!" James exclaimed. "It's our _job _to be responsible!"

"So is your face," Sirius replied succinctly.

Rolling his eyes, James turned and began to walk away from the incriminating scene, all guilty thoughts happily forgotten in lieu of arguing with his best friend. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"Oh, I'm the idiot now?" the Auror scoffed. "You're the one who can't keep his son out of harm's way."

"Well, maybe if you were more observant, I wouldn't have to!"

"_I _was watching Sentinel when Harry skipped out last month!" Sirius bellowed. "What were _you _doing, might I ask?"

James scowled and rounded on his friend. "Watching it with you, you incredible prat!"

A look of enlightenment dawned on James's canine companion. "So you were. Fancy that."

"Now if only we could hire someone to tail Harry 24/7…" James trailed off thoughtfully. "I suppose we could always hire some security dwarves."

"They smell funny," Sirius vetoed.

"Ah, that is true," James agreed. "Well, do you have any bright ideas then?"

Fred and George's brilliant orange heads popped up from nowhere.

"In our various minglings and hagglings, we've met a number of rather interesting blokes," Fred declared.

"If you offer the right incentive, we might just be able to hook you up with some excellent 'bodyguards' for a very reasonable price," George agreed.

James and Sirius glanced at each other uncertainly.

"I'm not sure Harry will be too thrilled at the idea of a bodyguard…" James said hesitantly.

Sirius waved a dismissive hand. "Nonsense. If he complains, we'll just tell him that it's the bodyguards or permanent dormitory arrest."

"Can we do that?"

"Not a chance in hell."

The Aurors turned back to the smirking twins. "Right," James said eagerly. "When can they start work?"

.:oOo:.

The instant Harry stepped out of the Gryffindor Common Room the next morning, he was tackled to the ground by a short, hairy man swathed in animal furs. Ron and Hermione immediately drew their wands to attack the mysterious assailant, but before they could do so, Fred and George leapt protectively in front of the strange man.

"Hang on!" Fred snapped. "You can't kill Gengy, he's Harry's new bodyguard."

That one drew a lot of incredulous stares.

"Pardon?" Hermione finally said.

"Gengy," George announced, waving an introductory hand to the short man who, as they could now see, was in fact wearing a helmet, leather armor, and carrying a great club. He had a distinctly Asian look about him, perhaps from Mongolia or somewhere similar.

Gengy grunted something incomprehensible.

"Well, now, you should have mentioned that before we brought you here," Fred told the barbaric bodyguard sternly. "You just hit anyone that comes near Harry. It's terribly simple."

"Wait a minute!" Harry snarled, jumping to his feet. Gengy glowered at him and raised his club. "Just what are you two playing at?"

"Sirius and James asked us to find you a bodyguard, to keep you from going off and getting yourself killed," Fred said with his usual tact.

"Hence Gengy," George concluded.

Hermione eyed him warily. "He doesn't look very… dangerous. That is, he only has a club, and I'm not sure how much use that is against magic."

Fred cast her a solemn look. "What he lacks in magic, he makes up for in cunning, strength, ferocity, and hordes."

"Pardon?" Hermione repeated.

George pulled a horn from out of thin air and blew it. Ten seconds later, at least a hundred men in furs and armor raced into the corridor, shouting and arguing at a deafening level. A wave of body odor and, curiously, dried blood, washed over them.

"Excuse me," Harry said politely. "I need to go murder my guardians. It will only take a second."

He stormed off down the corridor. The Mongolian horde raised their clubs, gave a resounding cheer, and raced after him.

Hermione and Ron exchanged a long-suffering look. Reaching down to grasp a lone club, forgotten in the stampede, Hermione sighed deeply.

"I'll go get the Headmaster."


	46. The Sweet Escape

Disclaimer: I own nothing, except my darling Tristan

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter 46 – The Sweet Escape

"Does he have to be over _all _the time?" James demanded crossly.

"He's so cute!" Lily defended, patting Tristan's head fondly. The boy, sitting contentedly at Lily's feet, wiggled his bottom, apparently channeling the behavior of a puppy on that particular day, and leaned in for a good head scratching.

Sirius scowled and sank deeper into his armchair. The three reunited friends, and of course their unwelcome guest, where in James and Sirius' apartments, catching up on old times as they often tended to do.

"As the only one here who can actually turn into a dog, you'd think I'd have the monopoly on canine cuteness, but _noooo_…" Sirius muttered mutinously.

"Oh hush," Lily scolded.

She paused in her scratching when Tristan suddenly leapt to his feet, pointed dramatically at the door, and screamed, "Mangy Mongols Marauding My-Way!". Then he dove behind the couch.

Taking it in stride, James sighed and went to comfort the child. By the time he rounded the couch, though, he wondered why he had even bothered. Tristan was nowhere to be seen.

"… marauding…" Sirius was saying to himself. "Kid's gone round the bend. Again."

Lily made a 'quiet' motion. "Does anyone hear that?"

The trio paused to listen. "It sounds almost like… footsteps?" James postulated.

"I'd say at least thirty people," Sirius agreed. "Probably more. And it sounds like they're heading this way."

The two men exchanged a panicked look.

"What did we do?" James said frantically, leaping to his feet and beginning to pace.

"Why do you always assume everything is your fault?" Lily asked rhetorically.

"Well, there's the privacy-invading, insanely illegal security system we've secretly been running for months," Sirius listed with an increasingly nervous tone. "Those midnight visits to our allies in the woods—"

"If you're making alliances with the trees again, James…" Lily trailed off menacingly.

"It was only the once," her husband defended.

"James, they're _trees_," she snapped. "You can't make alliances with them because _they don't move_!"

"You don't know that!" James cried. "There's no definitive proof to suggest that—"

"We don't need any proof, because they're _trees_, and _trees _don't _move_!"

"Then how do you explain the everglades?" he demanded.

"I don't!" Lily cried.

Sirius was staring at the door with a wide-eyed expression. "Er… the angry mob is rapidly approaching, mates."

"They go on forever and ever," James said patiently, "or else they wouldn't be called _Ever_glades."

"That's not at all why—"

"And if something goes on forever, it must be infinite," he continued. "But since there is a finite amount of soil on which to grow trees, we can only conclude that the trees must move in order to simulate the effect of eternity."

"You are an idiot," his wife pronounced.

"And when the trees send you to sleep with the leaves, don't think you won't regret saying that," James countered.

"It's fishes, James, not leaves," Lily sighed.

"What, so now you're saying that fish live in trees?" he snorted. "And you expect me to take you seriously!"

"GUYS!" Sirius exploded.

That shut them up nicely.

"What?" they chorused irritably.

The Animagus waved a hand towards the door. Which had apparently been opened at some point, and now currently framed a fuming Boy-Who-Lived, flanked by a raging horde of bellowing Mongols.

"Hello Mum," Harry said pleasantly. "Would you mind popping upstairs? I just need to murder Dad and Sirius, you see. Won't take a minute."

Lily stared at Harry, stared at the Mongols, glared at the pale-faced Animagi, and smartly exited the room. "Loyalty until death do us part, my arse," James muttered savagely.

"Now wait a minute," Sirius announced, bounding to his feet. His ever-so-subtle reaching for his wand did not go unnoticed by anyone. The horde surged towards him, and Sirius quickly placed his hands above his head. "Don't get your knickers in a twist," he scowled.

"Don't act so innocent!" Harry snarled. "You've gone too far this time!" He cast an appalled look at the smelly, hairy men crowded around him. "I mean, honestly! If you were going to hire a bodyguard for me, at least make it less blatantly obvious that you were doing so!"

"How is this our fault?" James demanded, affecting an angelic expression. "Sirius and I have nothing to do with these… gentlemen being here."

"We admit to nothing!" Sirius chimed in.

James bopped him on the head. "Don't admit to nothing, it makes it sound like we're guilty of something."

"Which we aren't," he said, getting it straight. "Of course we aren't. Ridiculous notion. Don't know where you got it from."

The teenager scowled at them. "Fred and George told me that you asked them to hire me a bodyguard."

"Ah," James sighed.

"Bugger," Sirius agreed.

"In our defense, we had no idea they would turn out this… hairy," James said delicately.

"What, so you just said to them 'Fred, George, find us a bodyguard'?" Harry gaped. "You don't _say _vague things like that to the twins! They thrive on poorly worded statements!"

Sirius made a calming gesture with his hands. "Okay, everyone just calm down and we'll get this sorted out. Who's the leader of this charming group?"

One Mongol, about half a foot taller than the rest and decked out in elaborately carved armor, thrust his way out of the horde and shook his club at Sirius.

"This is Gengy," Harry introduced. "He's their leader, doesn't speak a word of English, although Fred and George seem to have no trouble communicating with him. Have they been spending time with Tristan that I haven't been aware of?"

Gengy grunted eloquently.

"Oh, this is just what we need," James groaned. "Yet another minor character we don't have a hope of understanding."

"He isn't a character, he's a Mongol, and his horde nearly destroyed the Gryffindor common room about five minutes ago," Harry snapped. "I don't know how you and the twins managed to get a Mongol horde into Hogwarts, but send them back to Mongolia. I don't need a bodyguard, and you bloody well know it!"

"Says the Boy-Who-Walked-Straight-Into-An-Obvious-Trap," Sirius murmured.

"I heard that!" his godson bellowed.

"That was the point," the Animagus retorted. "We'll get rid of Gengy and his… associates, but you're having a bodyguard whether you like it or not!"

Harry clenched his fists furiously, but despite the amused look on his godfather's face, he knew from the glint in his eyes that they weren't giving up on this.

"We'll see about that," he snapped. "But if you try pulling something like 'Gengy' again, I will personally disappear again, and go hide away somewhere and live on rats and… and be thoroughly miserable until you're sorry!"

.:Top notch threat:. Decimare sighed. .:I'm surprised they haven't fallen to their knees begging for forgiveness already:.

"Shut up!" Harry shouted, both at Decimare, the Mongol horde, and the entire situation in general. Scowling, he turned and marched from the room, club-waving, grunting horde in tow.

Sirius and James exchanged a long-suffering look. They stared silently at each other, both reflecting on what had just occurred.

Finally, Sirius said slowly, "Where on earth did the twins find a—"

James clasped his friend gently on the shoulder. "Don't question it, Padfoot. Just..."

Sirius sighed heavily. "You're right. Well then, shall we go murder the twins?"

James gave a relieved laugh. "I thought you'd never ask."

.:oOo:.

Their murder of Fred and George didn't go quite according to plan. Upon confronting the ginger-haired duo, Sirius and James had suddenly realized that if they killed the twins, they would have no way in which to return the Mongols to wherever they came from. They might not even be Mongolian. Or human, for that matter.

"We'll get rid of them," Fred had promised, once their wands had been removed from his nasal cavities. "Not to worry, it's all under control."

"Say," George said craftily, subtly interposing himself between Fred and his assaulters. "We obviously didn't judge your bodyguarding needs appropriately. What say we give it another go?"

"I think not," James replied bluntly. "We'll find our own bodyguard, thank you very much."

"Just get rid of the Mongols, and we'll take it from there," Sirius instructed.

The twins saluted sharply, and dashed off down the corridor.

.:oOo:.

When Harry woke up the next morning, got up, got dressed, greeted his friends, and wasn't accosted by hairy barbarians the instant he left the common room, he was moderately hopeful that the whole debacle yesterday was a thing of the past.

Then a short, hairy blur streak past them. Fred and George followed a split second later, both gasping for breath and looking distinctly more panicked then usual. Fred was carrying what looked suspiciously like a club.

"Oy!" Harry bellowed, causing them to skid to a halt.

"What on earth are you two doing?" Hermione demanded. "Class isn't starting for at least an hour."

"Ah," Fred said evasively. "We were simply… testing out our new sneakers."

"Supposedly they're faster than Mercury himself," George agreed, smiling winningly.

Hermione eyed them uncertainly. "You mean the Roman god of messengers? With the winged sandals?"

"You know him?" Fred gaped.

"Can you get us his autograph?" George begged.

Ron and Harry snickered to themselves as Hermione was taken aback by the ridiculous suggestion. "I'm not sure you can get a god's autograph…" she blinked.

"Shame, that," Fred sighed. "Toodles!"

They took off down the hall before anyone could say otherwise.

"They've gone completely crackers," Ron announced.

By noon, the twins were MIA, and James and Sirius had mercifully kept any further attempts at hiring a bodyguard to themselves. Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat down with their classmates at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall and helped themselves to some yorkshire pudding and steak.

Suddenly, the Great Hall doors burst open.

Up at the high table, Sirius and James visibly perked up.

'Bugger,' Harry thought to himself.

.:I suspect Gengy's replacement has just arrived:. Decimare hissed.

Through the doors strode a young, devastatingly attractive girl with long blonde hair, baby-blue eyes, and an unmistakeable 'come hither' attitude. Every male student instantly fell head over heels for the mystery girl.

Predictably, the girl sashayed her way straight to Harry and sank down gracefully next to him.

"Er…" Harry blinked. "And you are?"

"Portia Maria Jacqueline Galadriel Kahlan Fowl," she rattled off with a brilliant smile. "You must be Harry Potter."

She leaned forward conspiratorially. "I'm here to protect you!" she whispered with a wink.

"Not to be rude," Ginny said rudely, "but what in the bloody hell do you want with Harry?"

"Well," Portia said, glancing up not-so-covertly towards James and Sirius, who instantly pretended that they were avidly looking elsewhere. "Once I graduated from Harvard with my doctorate in nuclear physics and won the Miss America beauty pagent, I decided to devote my summer to helping orphans in Africa, but unfortunately after I cured malaria and helped land man on the moon, I got a hangnail, so I decided to come see my long lost cousin Harry Potter!"

"Harry doesn't have any cousins," Ginny said primly, "and you're a moron."

"You must be Ginny!" Portia simpered. "I've heard so much about you! I love your red hair so much, we really must go up to the dormitory and have a girl's night out! I won several hairstyling competitions back in my home of Sarbakia—"

"Which doesn't exist," Hermione noted darkly. It was easily apparent that neither girl particularly liked this newcomer, who just so happened to somehow be the most perfect person, ever. Harry didn't much like her either.

"Irrelevant!" the girl proclaimed brightly. "You and I are going to be the best of friends, Hermione! I like books too! You know, I've recently authored a book on the effect of quantum physics on minor transfigurations, you should really look it up, it's gotten rave reviews-"

Across the hall, trouble was brewing in the form of Draco Malfoy.

Getting to his feet, the blonde aristocrat sauntered over to Gryffindor table, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle as always. Before anyone could stop him, Malfoy had walked up to them and reached a hand towards Portia's head.

Harry and his friends watched in disgust as the Slytherin brushed his fingers against the new girl's cheek and fixed her with an incredibly sultry expression. "Why don't you ditch these losers and come hang out with me?" he said in a smooth manner that Harry, as a 'golden boy', could never have pulled off without receiving a smack in the face.

To their further astonishment, Portia swiveled around and laced her fingers through Draco's outstretched hand. "You must be Draco Malfoy," she purred.

'Oh, I do _not _need to see this,' Harry blanched mentally.

His dismay faded somewhat when Decimare sounded more amused than appalled. .:Stop acting like a frightened school child, Master. This is not what it seems:.

'No?' he demanded. 'Because it seems a lot like my arch enemy is hitting on the random cute girl who is entirely too perfect to be allowed.'

.:As if that weren't a dead giveaway:. Decimare snorted.

Draco's silver eyes darkened. "Why don't we… go somewhere private and get to know each other?" he murmured in a manner entirely inappropriate for a school dining hall.

Portia leaned towards him and pecked him on the cheek.

"Slut," Ginny muttered.

"Ginny!" Hermione gasped.

"Well, it's true," the redhead scowled.

Then Portia whispered something in Draco's ear.

Malfoy reeled back in horror and started wiping furiously at his previously-kissed cheek. "That's revolting!" he snarled, glaring murderously at the girl. "What the hell is wrong with you people? Just be who you're supposed to be for once!"

Ginny and Hermione exchanged a bewildered glance. "Maybe… she's not as horrid as we thought she was?" Ginny blinked.

"What did you tell him?" Harry demanded.

Portia smiled angelically.

"Word for word? Well, it went something like this: Before we have our little rendezvous, it might interest you to know that I'm actually your auntie Tonks in disguise. Still up for a little incest?"

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny blanched.

Ginny was the first to recover. "Tonks!" she exclaimed, flinging her arms around the Metamorphmagus.

"Oy, don't give away my secret identity!" the Auror protested mildly. She grinned at Harry. "Betcha didn't see that one coming."

"I suppose you're my new bodyguard?" Harry asked with a resigned sigh.

"Yep! And there's nothing you can do about it!" Tonks smirked.

"God forbid I have control of my own life," Harry muttered. "Well, at least you're better than a horde of barbarians."

Hermione was staring at the spot where Fred and George normally sat. "Somehow I don't think the barbarians are quite as 'taken care of' as the twins would have us believe."

Harry waved a hand dismissively. "I'm sure they have it all under control."

"They're much more competent than we give them credit for," Ginny agreed.

Ron gaped at them. "Are you bloody joking? This is Fred and George we're talking about! They've probably… I don't know, lost control of the horde, who are now running free in Hogwarts!"

Tonks patted his shoulder. "I don't think the Headmaster would let a Mongol horde roam around Hogwarts without supervision, Ron. Don't worry. I'm sure everything is being taken care of."

.:oOo:.

Gengy paced restlessly back and forth along the corridor. Behind him on the wall was a brightly colored painting of some hideous creature in a frilly pink outfit. It only served to increase his sense of unease.

"Oh mighty Khan," one of his subordinates rasped, clutching at his club uncertainly. "We have evaded capture by the red-haired demons… but without them we have no means of returning to our own time. What course of action can we take?"

Their leader, who was actually the mighty Gengis Khan, conqueror of Asia, gave a pensive grunt. "We must locate a defensive position from which we can gain more knowledge of this strange new world. Once we know what we are facing, we can apprehend those twin demons and force them to return us to our time."

"Will your vast hordes not panic when their leader disappears?" the subordinate pressed. "How can we strike fear into the hearts of our highly advanced and far more civilized Western cousins if we are trapped in this unnatural place?"

Genghis Khan did not know much about time travel, but his former abductors had intimated upon their abduction of he and his horde that they would be returned to their own time as if they had never been missing. Now that he had orchestrated his grand escape, however, that return was somewhat jeopardized.

"We will wait," he declared, ceasing his pacing. "Until we can determine how to force the red-haired monsters to send us back, we shall make ourselves scarce. If only there were some place inaccessible by our demon captors…"

The painting on the wall behind him instantly transformed into a door.

"What sorcery is this?" one of the horde whispered.

"The gods smile on us!" Gengis bellowed. "This portal has been sent to deliver us to safety!"

He opened the door. Inside was a huge expanse, filled with trees, streams, grasslands, and all manner of inhabitable and self-sustaining natural landscape. The perfect place for a Mongol horde to hide while they contemplated measures of escape. And to execute lightning raids on the unsuspecting Hogwarts populace.

Half a mile away, Fred and George paled.

"So you have no idea where they went?" Fred said resignedly.

"Not a clue," George sighed. "But maybe…"

"We aren't military men," Fred said slowly. "But if we got someone who…"

"They would be able to find Gengy, and then…"

They exchanged a victorious high-five. "Let's do it!" George enthused.

Fred paused. "But what if Sirius and James… not to mention Dumbledore…"

"Or Harry," George agreed, shuddering visibly. "I don't know when that kid got so incredibly terrifying."

"They won't find out," Fred shrugged it off. "We just bring them in, have them find Gengy, and send them all back."

"What if they go rogue on us again?"

"That won't happen," Fred decided. "Roman legionnaires are notoriously well-trained."

"I'll get the time turner," George grinned.

.:oOo:.


	47. Valentine's Day

Chapter Forty-Seven: Valentine's Day

Disclaimer: I own nothing. NOTHING!

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Forty-Seven: Valentine's Day

Valentine's day. That eternal nemesis of single folk and headache for everyone else. As the day approached, Harry became increasingly aware of Ginny's behavior – more specifically, her gradual shift from sensible, intelligent student to breathless, giggling girl.

To say it terrified him would be an understatement. Harry knew that it was simply a byproduct of the Valentine's day phenomenon, but her sudden personality switch was nevertheless jarring.

It didn't helpt that Hermione and Ron had just had a massive fight and now refused to speak to each other. In an attempt to find out what had happened, Harry asked each friend seperately to describe the fight.

"He was being dense and ignorant, as usual," Hermione had spat. "I pointed out how cute you and Ginny were, and wouldn't it be funny if _we _started dating as well, since we could go on double dates, and I was _clearly _hinting how much I fancy him, but all he did was laugh and say 'Yeah, that is crazy.' Argh!"

Ron had a slightly different take on the situation.

"She made a joke and I laughed. Now she won't talk to me. The girl is barmy."

Harry had been forced to restrain Ginny, who would have committed fratricide at that moment if given the chance.

Faced with his girlfriend's obvious love of Valentine's day, Harry was determined to make the day absolutely perfect for her.

Then Sirius offered to help him plan the special day. Harry immediately lost all control of the situation and was forced to retreat to his dormitory in defeat, leaving his godfather to plan every detail.

His reasoning was that Sirius, who was quite the ladies' man, or so he claimed (Harry had never actually seen the man within ten feet of a woman his age), would know far more about proper Valentine's procedures than Harry.

Decimare took the opportunity to grace Harry with his favorite catch phrase.

.:You are an idiot:. he proclaimed fondly. .:At least this latest blunder will have a humorous, and non-lethal, outcome:.

'I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about,' Harry replied stoically.

The day itself dawned cold but sunny. When Harry awoke – it was Sunday, so he got to sleep in – he discovered an enormous bouquet of flowers at the foot of his bed. An attached note read: "Wake Ginny up with these." It was signed with a stylized S.B. inside a black paw print.

"See?" Harry whispered to Decimare. "Sirius came through. I told you I could trust him!"

.:Because entrusting Sirius Black with Ginny's Valentine's day can't possibly end badly:. the snake spirit hissed.

"Exactly," Harry agreed, pleased that the sword was finally coming around.

.:I'll let you figure out the problems inherent in this situation for yourself:. Decimare sighed.

Deciding that the snake spirit was being overly dramatic as usual, Harry took a quick shower, dressed, gathered up the gargantuan bouquet, and headed down to the common room.

It was only then that Harry discerned a problem in Sirius' plot.

"I can't get to the girls' dorm, can I?" he groaned. Eyeing the girls' staircase – notoriously prone to turning into an unclimable slide at the slightest male provocation – Harry wondered what on earth his godfather had been thinking.

.:What will you do now?:. Decimare snorted.

"Joke's on you," Harry snapped, summoning his broom with an easy flick of his wand. Hopping on, Harry rose into the air and zoomed up the stairs. The poor steps never had a chance.

Decimare whistled. .:I'm impressed. I actually did not see that stunt coming:.

Harry beamed.

.:Your moments of intelligence are so elusive that even I have trouble predicting them:. the snake added.

"Oh, shut up," Harry glowered.

Stage two was to actually locate Ginny's room. He accomplished this with little difficulty, and moments later was sneaking into her dormitory like the most seasoned voyeur.

.:Nice comparison:. Decimare snickered.

Spotting a red head peeking above the blankets, Harry tiptoed over. Not sure how to wake her, Harry tentatively prodded the sleeping girl. She huffed and rolled over.

Insight flashed through Harry's mind. When she napped in the common room, the most effective way to awaken her had always been to yank off the covers.

So Harry did just that.

Ginny shrieked and bolted upright. Then she noticed Harry, who was frozen, staring at her with a completely shell shocked expression.

'She might have mentioned that she sleeps in her… her…' Harry's thoughts trailed off, his poor, befuddled mind unable to form a coherent thought.

.:Undergarments?:. Decimare supplied helpfully. .:Lacy, sexy lingerie, no less:.

Harry was a perfect gentleman. He always had been. But no matter how hard he tried, the teenage boy simply could not avert his eyes.

To her credit, Ginny took everything in stride. Arching an eyebrow, the redhead calmly climbed to her feet, retrieved the bouquet from Harry's numb fingers, and pegged him with an amused look.

"If I had known that my sleep wear could seduce you so effectively, I would have 'accidentally' disrobed years ago," she grinned.

Reason slowly seeped into Harry's hormone-crazed brain. "W-what?"

.:Vixen:. Decimare hissed in approval.

Ginny batted her eyelashes. "Thank you for the flowers, Harry. I love them."

Then she pressed her lips to his, and coherence blissfully vacated Harry's mind once more.

.:oOo:.

"You two look cheerful," Hermione grumbled as they sat down in the Great Hall nearly an hour later.

Pink confetti rained down from the ceiling, and everywhere couples strode about engaging in displays of affection ranging from simple hand holding to passionate snogging that bordered on the indecent.

Ron was chatting and laughing with Lavender Brown, which explained Hermione's sour mood.

Harry nudged his bushy haired friend in a supportive manner. "Don't worry," he grinned. "Between my guardians, the twins, and Tristan, I'm sure we'll get our share of laughs today."

Tonks, thankfully appearing like her usual self, burst into the hall, peering around wildly. Spotting Harry, she shot towards him, took a flying leap, and crashed into the poor boy. They tumbled to the floor.

"What the--" Harry gasped for air, finding himself pinned under the Auror. "Tonks! What are you--"

"Protecting you," she said in a deathly serious voice.

"From _what_?" he gaped.

"Valentines," Tonks responded grimly.

On cue, a veritable army of owls swooped into the Great Hall, each bearing a lurid pink envelope. As Tonks had predicted, the flock headed straight for Harry, dumping an avalanche of Valentines on he and Tonks.

Struggling heroically to her feet, Tonks brandished her wand like a sword, causing the letters to stack themselves in a haphazard fashion.

"You know," Harry huffed, clambering upright, "I don't think that _this _is the sort of thing you're supposed to be protecting me from."

Tonks pouted at him. "Well, excuse me! Maybe if you got yourself into life-threatening situations a little more often, I wouldn't have to stave off my boredom like this!"

"You've only been here a week, how can you be bored already?" Harry groused.

"Well, those weird guys in Roman legionnaire costumes yesterday _were _interesting," Tonks allowed. "But they've disappeared, so I'm bored again."

"Sorry that my life isn't fascinating enough for you," Harry said sarcastically.

Tonks gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder. "We can't all be action heroes."

Harry sighed and returned to his toast.

.:oOo:.

Sirius was in Sentinel, crowing over the bouquet victory that morning, when James wandered in, a pleased expression on his face.

The canine animagus laughed appreciatively. "I take it she liked the earrings?"

James flopped down next to Sirius. "You could say that," he smirked.

"I need a girlfriend," Sirius muttered. "I wonder what Hooch is up to this afternoon…"

James blanched. "I'm going to pretend I did _not _just hear that."

A figure darted across the monitor. The duo exchanged a confused look. "Did that look like a…" James trailed off.

"What, a Napoleanic infantry man?" Sirius snorted. "Must be some crazy Valentines prank."

"I suppose…" his bespectacled friend agreed uncertainly.

"So," Sirius grinned, changing topics abruptly. "What are you and Lily up to today?"

James smiled lazily. "We're staying in."

His best mate hooted. "Prongs, you dog!"

"She's my wife," James snapped. "We can do whatever we like when we're alone."

"Prongs is getting lucky tonight," Sirius sniggered.

"Someone's jealous."

"Of course I am," Sirius laughed. "Go back to your nubile wife, Prongs. I'll continue…" He fell suspiciously silent.

James leapt to his feet. "What exactly _are _you doing today?"

"Oh, you know," Sirius said shiftily. "Seducing the female masses of Hogwarts and what not…"

Smacking his friend upside the head, James said, "You're an incurable player, and every girl in this school is underaged."

"Except Hooch," Sirius noted. "And McGonagall."

They exchanged a horrified look.

"Well then," Sirius announced, "seeing as I have successfully scarred you for life, you may now return to your previously scheduled activity."

James shot him a disgusted look and marched from the room.

Rubbing his hands together eagerly, Sirius returned to the monitor banks, where he was cooking up his next scheme.

Tristan pointed at one of the screens. "An oyster's romantic rendez-vous," he declared.

"Shouldn't you be off altering the space-time continuum, or whatever it is you do for fun?" Sirius inquired lightly.

"That's tomorrow," the child replied, propping his little feet up on the desk. "Today, the octopus laments the squid."

"Still no luck with Luna?" the animagus asked sympathetically. "Maybe she's turned off because you're a mutant ghost/dead person thing."

Tristan pulled a handful of mayonnaise packets from his shoes. "The skies rained."

"Rained mayonnaise?" Sirius blinked. "Oh, you mean Luna cried? You didn't give her those for Valentine's day!"

"Nutricious and delicious," Tristan glowed, tearing open a packet and devouring the contents.

"You might try flowers," the older man suggested. "Luna might be strange, but she's still a chick."

"A chick?" Tristan blinked. Then his eyes glinted suddenly. The Hufflepuff child leapt clean over Sirius' head and bolted out the door.

"Why do I get the feeling I should have worded that better?" Sirius sighed.

.:oOo:.

After lunch, Harry led Ginny out to the Quidditch pitch, which luckily was empty. This was actually because Sirius had shown up ten minutes before and forcible evacuated the area, a fact to which Harry remained blissfully unaware.

While most people probably wouldn't find a game of one-on-one Quidditch romantic, they weren't Harry and Ginny. Even Sirius had expressed doubts at Harry's plan, but the teen was insistent.

And it panned out. At the suggestion of a Quidditch match, Ginny's face lit up like a lantern. They took to the air and began an aerial dance of brooms, snitches, quaffles, and, inevitably, passionate snogging.

This started when Harry, having lost the quaffle to his girlfriend for the fifth time in two minutes, hit upon a new tactic.

Swooping down next to the redhead, who was streaking towards the goal, Harry grabbed her hand instead of the ball.

Ginny slowed slightly. "What are you up to?" she grinned. "The quaffle's over here."

"I'm not after the quaffle," Harry smirked. Before the girl could protest, Harry nearly pulled her off her broom as he began to kiss her passionately.

Ginny instantly melted into the kiss. The quaffle dropped from her fingers.

"Yes!" Harry cheered, breaking off the kiss to zoom after the ball. Two seconds later he had scored. Ginny was instantly at his side.

"You cheater!" she accused indignantly.

"Kissing my gorgeous girlfriend to distract her into dropping the quaffle is _not _against the rules," Harry smirked. "I checked."

"You _planned _this?" she gasped.

"Well," he said, somewhat embarassed. "You're a much better Chaser than me, so I figured that I'd need an ace up my sleeve if I wanted to stand a chance."

Ginny beamed at him. "That's so sweet!"

Before Harry could register it happening, Ginny seized the Quaffle and streaked off down the pitch. "Doesn't mean I'm going to let you win!" she called back at him.

Luckily, Harry still had one trick left, courtesy of Sirius.

"Hey Gin!" he yelled. "You haven't won yet!"

"No?"

"There's still the Snitch," he grinned. "You may be the better Chaser, but there's no way you're beating me at Seeking."

His girlfriend shot him a competitive look. "We'll see about that! You haven't even spotted the snitch yet!"

"Neither have you," Harry noted. This was a lie, as Harry had become so skilled at Seeking that he had spotted the Snitch several times already throughout the course of the game. However, it wouldn't be particularly condusive to his plan to mention this.

The Snitch hovered into view, directly between the pair. Harry directed a quasi-bow at his lady love. "After you, dear," he quipped.

Ginny immediately shot towards the winged ball, with Harry a split-second behind. As they neared the Snitch, it flew upwards, following its own unfathomable course.

They raced neck to neck after the ball, looping the goalposts, weaving around each other in a desperate race to recover the prize. At the last moment, Harry purposely peeled off, pretending to misjudge the Snitch's direction change. He watched with satisfaction as Ginny caught the Snitch.

"You let me win," she accused, eyes sparkling as she flew to him, the small winged ball clutched in her hand.

Harry didn't bother denying it. Instead, he gestured towards the snitch and said, "Look more closely."

Eyeing her boyfriend suspiciously, Ginny nevertheless did as requested. She shrieked when the modified snitch exploded with a puff of golden smoke, leaving a small jewelry box in its place.

"Aw, you shouldn't have," Ginny laughed, opening the box eagerly. A beautiful pearl band twinkled in the afternoon sunlight, strange runes engraved around the edge. "A ring?" she blinked. "Harry, I love you and all, but we can't get married while we're in school. I mean, we _could_, but people would definitely talk, and--"

Harry silenced her with a kiss. "I'm not proposing, it's just a ring I thought you would like!"

"Well in that case, I love it!" she grinned, launching herself into his arms. As both had quite forgotten they were still floating on brooms in midair, this would have ended rather messily save for Harry's lightning reflexes.

Before Harry could scold Ginny, the stadium exploded in noise and light.

Fireworks launched from an unseen location and exploded in middair, forming the words "Harry and Ginny 4 Ever" inside a gigantic heart shape. Someone had also charmed an enchanted orchestra to play a romantic tune in the background.

Ginny was positively ecstatic. Unbeknownst to her, that last part had been entirely Sirius' fault. Harry resolved to buy his godfather a crate of sweets at his next opportunity. Nothing said thank you like tooth-decaying delight.

Harry suddenly noticed that Ginny was staring at him with a very seductive gleam in her eye.

Two crates, he decided hazily, as Ginny closed the gap between them.

Snogging followed.

.:oOo:.

Sirius was bored. With Harry and Ginny in makeout mode for the rest of the day, there was little he could do there.

Bereft of a girlfriend or wife to lavish his attention on, and since his godson was otherwise occupied, Sirius decided to go play cupid with James and Lily.

He got all the way to James' bedroom door before the gasps and moans coming from inside convinced him to pursue a different couple.

Hermione was sequestered away in the library, turning each page with unecessary violence. Wincing, Sirius tiptoed up to her and said in a cheery tone, "You look royally pissed off."

The girl in question laughed bitterly. "That would be the understatement of the century."

"Ron being dense again?"

"You have no idea," she sighed. "He told me this morning that if I couldn't handle his sense of humor, then he would rather spend time with someone who could. This was after I got mad at him for trying to stick a sausage up his nose, for heaven's sake!"

"Git," Sirius scowled.

"He's not," Hermione sighed. "He's got a point. I can be rather difficult at times."

"You're a great catch, and Ron's a blind fool."

She smiled. "Thanks, Sirius."

The animagus itlted his head in thought. "Have you ever considered just telling him how you feel?"

Hermione paled. "I could never do that. Especially today!"

"What do you mean, _especially _today?" Sirius demanded. "This is the _perfect _day! Girls always get mushy on Valentine's day. If he rejects you, you can just pass it off as a Valentine's joke. Or a temporary loss of sanity."

"You… you think so?" she said cautiously. Sirius might be terrible immature, but he still had decades of experience on her. And Hermione always valued the opinion of those more knowledgeable than she.

"Definitely," he grinned. "Come on, I saw him flirting with Lavendar down by the lake."

"Flirting? You aren't exactly filling me with confidence."

Sirius pretended not to hear her.

They reached the lake without further ado, where Lavendar and Ron were indeed laughing together by the lakeside. They were seated on a rock with toes dangling in the water, apparently attempting to splash each other without the other noticing.

Ron noticed them first – or more specifically Hermione, since Sirius had scurried up a tree to watch the scene play out. Hermione glared at the tree, but Sirius just snickered and gave her an encouraging little wave.

"Hermione!" Ron greeted happily. "Lavendar was just telling me the funniest story!"

Discouraged, Hermione decided that perhaps Sirius had no idea what he was talking about after all. "I was just leaving," she said shortly.

"But you just got here!" Lavendar simpered, clearly wanting her bushy-haired competition as far away as possible.

Before Hermione said something she would definitely regret, Tristan burst out of the lake, covered from head to toe in seaweed.

"Loony!" he called plaintitavely. A quick survey of their surroundings revealed Luna Lovegood dabbling her toes in the water about a hundred feet away.

"Go away!" she exclaimed. "Your efforts are meaningless, you inhuman demon!"

Tristan waddled over to her and plunked a pile of seaweed down beside her. "Flowers," he explained. "For my amoeba."

Then he conjured a gigantic bird's nest from nowhere. Grabbing Luna, he dumped the girl into the nest, which was filled with little colourful squares that Hermione recognized as Chicklets gum.

"You're my chick," he said.

Luna frowned. "I am not a bird. Take your unwanted advances elsewhere!"

She clambered out of the nest.

Tristan was suddenly at Hermione's side, clutching her hand with a forlorn expression on his cherubic features.

"Bananas don't rain!" he wailed.

Hermione sighed. "I'm not exactly an expert on love, Tristan."

She watched Luna as the blonde girl started dumping the seaweed back into the lake. "Maybe…" she said slowly, "you're trying too hard to impress her."

Tristan hugged her and dashed back to Luna. Pulling out a spatula, he bopped Luna on the head with it and pushed her into the lake. He proceeded to dive in after her, grab her soaked head, and kiss her senseless.

Hermione and Ron exchanged an extremely disturbed look.

"You _do _love me!" Luna sputtered.

"Orange!"

They disappeared beneath the water.

Hermione turned to Ron with a determined expression. "Ron," she announced, "I have something to tell you."

Lavendar frowned at her. "Not to be rude, but Ron and I were trying to enjoy ourselves _alone _before you and the _freaks _showed up."

"Stupefy," Hermione responded succinctly. The irritating girl keeled backwards onto the semi-frozen ground.

Up in his tree, Sirius began to wonder if perhaps this hadn't been the best plan after all.

"Hermione!" Ron gaped. "You can't just go around stunning people!"

She completely ignored his words. "I've been silent about this for years because I didn't want to think about what would happen if you didn't feel the same way." Hermione glanced at the lake, where Luna and Tristan had still failed to re-emerge. "But after seeing _that_, I realized that it's stupid to go on wondering while accidentally pushing you away. You're far too dense to ever figure it out yourself, so I'll just have to tell you."

Sirius crossed his fingers.

"I love you," she concluded.

Ron gaped at her.

Blushing, Hermione snapped, "Well, _say _something, please!"

"I… uh…"

It wasn't the most eloquent, or most correct, response.

"I see," she said briskly. "Well, thank you for your time." As she turned to leave, barely keeping her tears at bay, Ron darted forwards and grabbed her arm. Before she could even gasp in surprised, he spun her around and kissed her. It was clumsy, it was inexperienced… and it was one of the most romantic things Sirius had ever seen.

"Oh," Hermione blinked once the freckled boy had released her.

"I've kind of fancied you since the first time I met you," he told her, ears reddening. "I just didn't think that you would ever settle from someone like me, so…"

Hermione slapped him.

Then she hugged him fiercely.

Sirius decided he needed to give her a stern talk on sending mixed messages.

"Are you even aware of how _miserable _you made me?" she sighed. "You impossible boy."

"Er… sorry?" Ron tried.

This brilliant response prompted another round of smooching. Sirius, starting to feel a little uncomfortable about perching in a tree watching people half his age make out, decided that he had contributed all that he could.

Slipping into canine form, Sirius leapt silently from the tree and padded off into the sunset.

.:oOo:.

Valentine's was a romantic success for nearly everyone. Even Crabbe and Goyle managed to steal a kiss… although as it was from each other, the incident was never mentioned again.

Yet Angelina and Katie sat together in the common room, debating in low voices why Fred and George had been perfectly romantic all day, then mysteriously disappeared during dinner.

The twins were in fact in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, sprawled on the floor and poking at it with their wands.

"We should be getting it on with our girls right now," George scowled. "Not tracking our escaped time-travelling compatriots."

"You're the one who lost the most feared Mongol dictator in the history of the world," Fred snapped.

"Well, if _you _hadn't threatened to stab Marc Antony if he wouldn't help us find Gengy, then the Romans wouldn't be missing as well!"

"It was a joke!" Fred glowered. "How was I supposed to know that he wouldn't find the Ides of March reference amusing?"

George sighed. "Looking back on it, we probably shouldn't have _then _ pulled Napoleon out of retirement to track them both down."

"You can't trust the French," his twin agreed darkly.

They stared at each other blankly.

"So where did they all go?" they chorused.

.:oOo:.

When the pale men in shining skirts arrived, Genghis hadn't been sure how to react. They moved in eeirly precise columns and had a bizarre tendancy to wrap themselves in white sheets and debate politics all through the night.

But Genghis had already figured out the strange powers of the forest room, and with a thought made it so that everyone was able to understand each other.

The leader of the pale men went by the title of Marcus Antonius, and although he spent most of his time blubbering over some dead wench called Cleopatra, he was nevertheless cut from the same cloth as Genghis. It was a simple matter to befriend the man and convince him to join forces with him agains their orange-haired kidnappers.

Then the short man arrived. Genghis had been sorely tempted to crush the little general's skull, just to see how his comically dressed troops would react. But when the midget introduced himself as _Emperor _Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis reconsidered.

The three commanders now sat in their command tent, gathered around a small mountain of reports from their scouts.

"Ze castle has at least seven floors, and would be easily defensible in ze event of an attack," Napoleon announced.

Beside him, Marc Antony darted forward to spin the short Emperor's hat ninety degrees.

"Desist in touching ma apparel!" the Frenchman hissed.

"It is sideways and unseemly!" Antony huffed. "You would do well to wear a helmet like ciwilized men."

"I may respect your culture and it's artistic achievements," Napoleon glowered, "but you are coming very, very close to provoking ma wrath."

"Silence!" Genghis snarled. "You two are bickering like children! We must develop a plan of attack if we hope to escape our fate!"

"What about zis 'Headmaster' person?" Napoleon put forward. "Our captors said zat he has control over ze entire castle."

"If we were to somehow hold him hostage…" Marc Antony trailed off.

"Yes!" Genghis roared. "The red-haired monsters would have no choice but to send us back to our times, if their precious Headmaster's life were on the line!"

"But zese people have unnatural abilities," the French general noted. "It would be very difficult to capture one of zem without severe reprecussion."

Genghis bit his scarred lip in thought. "Then for now, we wait. Continue sending out scouts. Tell them to leave the occupants of the castle alone, but to bring back anything of interest, that we might use to barter with in the future for our passage home."

"And zen, when ze time is right, we shall make zem rue ze day zey captured us!" Napoleon cheered.

"They will perish in a lake of blood!" Marc Antony cackled.

Genghis Kahn and Napoleon exchanged an awkward look and edged away from the Roman general.

.:oOo:.

"So," Harry smiled, gazing down at the girl lying in his arms. "Would you say that our first Valentine's day was a success?" They lay on a couch in the common room, staring peacefully into the fireplace.

"I'd say so," Ginny grinned, pecking him on the cheek. "Full marks, Mister Potter."

Hermione and Ron wandered in at that moment, holding hands.

"You finally told him!" Ginny exclaimed with delight.

"She did," Ron agreed. "She also told me what an incredible git I am. That part wasn't so fun."

"On the plus side, now you two can stop bickering all the time," Harry observed.

Hermione snorted. "I highly doubt that." They pulled up armchairs next to the couch, and soon fell into pleasant conversation.

About an hour later, Colin Creevey staggered into the room, bearing with him a huge sack filled with Harry's valentines.

"I'd forgotten about those," Harry groaned. "Thanks, Colin."

The strange muggleborn gave his idol a huge grin and dashed up the stairs. "Five galleons says at least ten of those valentines are from Colin," Ron bet.

"Not a chance," Ginny laughed.

Harry lugged the bag over to the group and plunked it down in front of him. Ginny reached over and pulled out the first one.

"To my lovey love-cake," she read in a high-pitched, breathy voice. "How I wish you would notice me. My bleeing heart aches to have you stand by my side, bolstering me with your effulgence… wait, what?"

"It means brightness or goodness, something like that," Hermione rattled off. "These are fascinating. I've never actually seen a secret admirer's love note… may I have one?"

Harry distributed them liberally. It's not as if he were planning on taking any of them seriously.

"Here's one from Millicent Bulstrode," Ron announced, then blanched. "Urgh."

It went straight into the fire, along with a number of similar cards.

Then Hermione found a valentine that had something… off about it.

"Dear Harry," she read out. "You are my sun, my moon, etc. Meet me at that place where we discussed the shiny things. Tomorrow. Midnight. I love you forever and all that. You know who."

"Peter," Harry realized instantly. "It must be Wormtail who wrote that. Who else would want to discuss shiny things with me?"

"A magpie?" Ginny suggested.

"Oh, a niffler!" Ron said.

"We're coming with you," was Hermione's contribution.

It took a moment for Harry to realize she was being serious. "No, you aren't," he vetoed instantly.

"Why not?" she demanded. "You could definitely use backup, after what you said happened last time."

"Well, you can't get there without being caught, for one," Harry snapped.

"And you can?" she demanded.

"Animagus!" he exclaimed. "Remember? Falcon?"

Hermione looked rather disgruntled with herself. "Oh."

"Fine," Ginny snapped, coming to Hermione's aide. "But you'd better check in with us the moment you get back!"

"Right away," Harry promised. "Actually, with you guys in on the whole Pettigrew thing, you can run interference for me in case Dad and Sirius… or Tonks now, I suppose, try to stop me. Or follow me. Or just try to find me and talk to me, for that matter."

"We're having a snogging session in your dorm tomorrow night," Ginny informed him. "It will be so passionate that unfortunately you will be completely occupied for the entire evening."

"How tragic," Ron quipped.

"It's decided then," Harry declared. "Tomorrow night I will meet with Peter and finally get Merlin's shield. Then Voldemort will be powerless against me!"

.:oOo:.

Dumbledore summoned Harry to his office the next morning, avoiding his gaze as before, but still sounding rather urgent.

"I have something to tell you, that I should have told you years ago," the man announced. "I hadn't planned on saying anything for at least a few more years, but… well, your mother and I had a chat. That should more than explain my change of heart."

"What did you want to talk to me about?" Harry blinked.

"Voldemort."

Harry suppressed a smirk. "Well, he hasn't exactly been very active lately, has he? I think he's not nearly as tough as everyone thinks he is."

'Once I have the sword and shield together, he's finished,' he thought triumphantly.

"Actually…" Dumbledore trailed off with a grimace. "I think it's about time I told you about Horcruxes."

In his mind, Decimare let out a string of incredibly vulgar curses.

'Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like this conversation one bit?' Harry thought to himself.

The snake spirit just groaned.

.:oOo:.


	48. Reclamation

Disclaimer: The characters, settings, and everything else having anything remotely to do with Harry Potter and his obscenely massive franchise do not belong to me.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Forty-Eight: Reclamation

"So… you're basically telling us that Voldemort, due to his extreme lack of morality and human decency, has split up his soul into approximately seven pieces and scattered them across England, making him practically invincible?"

Harry nodded at Hermione.

"Then why don't you look more concerned!" she bellowed.

Wincing, Harry scuttled a few feet away from the enraged brunette. It was lunchtime, which Harry had forced them to cut short so that he could drag his friends to a secluded place and tell them what he had learned.

"What I don't get is why Dumbledore just told you all this now," Ron mused. "I mean, he never tells you stuff."

"He said that Mum 'spoke' with him," Harry explained.

"Ah."

"And did he say what you're supposed to _do _with this knowledge?" Hermione pressed.

Ginny scowled at her friend. "Leave Harry alone. He's just heard something massive, he doesn't need you badgering him."

Harry quickly interposed himself between the two girls. "Listen," he said, "this isn't as bad as you're making it out to be."

"How do you figure?" Ron snorted. "Your arch nemesis is immortal. Sounds bloody bad to me."

Turning away, Harry began to pace the empty classroom, well aware that his friends were watching him with expressions ranging from mildly concerned to downright horrified.

"Well, firstly, there are only six horcruxes still around, not seven," he explained. "I destroyed one of them – Riddle's diary – in second year. And Dumbledore says he's pretty sure he knows the location of a second."

"And what about the other five?" Hermione snapped. "The Dark Lord wouldn't exactly leave them lying around in the open. And how did your mother know about the horcruxes anyway!"

"Dumbledore said that she helped him research them in the first place. Which means Dad knows, and he might have told Sirius and Pettigrew… hey, guys, _Pettigrew_!"

"He was Voldemort's right hand rat!" Ginny agreed. "He probably knows all about them!"

"It's settled, then," Harry declared. "I'll go see him tonight, and I'll ask him about the horcruxes while I'm getting the shield."

"I'm going to get ready," he concluded, walking from the room. His friends exchanged worried looks in his wake.

.:Ginny is wearing the ring:. Decimare noted as Harry wandered through the halls. The boy did not have a particular destination in mind, despite his expressed need to prepare. All Harry really wanted was to escape the sympathetic gazes of his friends. So his life had just grown exponentially harder. That didn't mean he wanted their pity.

'I'm glad she likes it,' Harry responded noncomitally.

.:I might as well tell you now, since she's going to figure it out soon enough:. the snake said. .:I altered the ring you gave her:.

Harry wasn't surprised. 'I kind of figured. When I found that thing in an abandoned room in the Chamber of Secrets, it didn't exactly have mystical runes covering it.'

.:Well done:. Decimare blinked, unwillingly impressed.

'What did you do to it?'

.:I made some… modifications:.

Harry sighed. 'Such as?'

.:Oh, you know… sentience:.

He choked. 'Pardon?'

.:I may have harnessed the magical core of Hogwarts to imbue the ring with sentience and a personality, as well as the ability to transform into a sword in case she needs some defense:. the snake hissed innocently.

'You can do that?' Harry gaped.

.:I was lonely, alright?:. Decimare snapped. .:Now you can sleep well knowing your precious Ginny is able to defend herself, and I can have someone intelligent to talk to:.

'You made a girl ring, didn't you?' he laughed.

The snake did not respond.

'You weren't lonely, you were jealous of me and Ginny!' Harry exclaimed. 'You sly old snake, you _do _have a heart!'

.:I am a magical construct called forth into being by a long-dead mad sorceror:. Decimare proclaimed. .:I have as much of a heart as that door does:.

The hallway they were currently walking down had no doorways.

Harry sighed. 'So will Ginny find this out? Can she talk to her ring like I can?'

.:No. I am no wizard, so I was not able to give the ring the ability of speech. I can speak to it because I am the creator, and I am also an inanimate construct. Beyond that, it is like any other ring. Except that it turns into a sword:.

Even though he trusted the snake spirit implicitly, Harry was nevertheless glad that his sword did not, in fact, have the ability to replicate himself at will. He imagined an army of Decimares, and shuddered at the thought. The sarcasm alone would be maddening.

.:oOo:.

Harry's escape from Hogwarts was surprisingly simple, although he took excessive care to ensure that he was completely covered by his invisibility cloak until he was well into the Forbidden Forest. He still had no idea how Sirius and James had followed him last time, and he wasn't taking any chances that they would repeat the feat.

Once he had passed the tree-line, Harry slipped the cloak from his shoulders and carefully hid it behind a bush.

.:Because the chances of someone finding that while you are gone are so slim:. Decimare groaned.

'Oh, hush, only a centaur would recognize what it is, and they're way deeper in the forest.'

From there it was a straight-forward matter to shift to falcon form and wing his way to Hogsmeade. Even though he was on a time limit, Harry still couldn't stop himself from showboating a bit, doing some daring twirls and dives that prompted several lectures on personal safety from Decimare.

It was nearly midnight by the time he reached the mountain cave, and after doing a few aerial sweeps to make sure there weren't any Death Eaters or Dementors lurking about like last time, Harry alighted at the cave entrance.

He considered sneaking into the cave in hawk form to make sure Peter was alone, or that this was not in fact an elaborate trap, but he decided that trust at some point was necessary. Shifting back to human form, Harry cautiously made his way into the cavern.

Peter was much as he'd last seen him, except that he'd lost even more weight, and was now practically normal sized. His hair was even scragglier than before, and his skin eerily pale, but he seemed more or less healthy. Not that Harry really cared – he trusted the man to an extent, and sincerely believed that Peter had repented from his wicked ways, but Harry never forgot that this man had single-handedly destroyed his entire family.

"H-Harry!" Pettigrew rasped, rushing forward to shake Harry's hand frantically.

"Er… hi?" Harry blinked. "Nice message, by the way."

Peter laughed nervously. "Well, I had to get it to you without attracting suspicion, didn't I?"

"Do you have the shield?" Harry said, getting straight to the point of the visit.

In response, Peter scuttled into the darkness and returned with the burlap-wrapped shield. Unfolding the fabric in an almost reverent manner, Peter exposed Merlin's shield in all its engraved, platinum glory.

'Was it always that color?' Harry wondered. 'I thought it was more golden…'

.:It probably changes whenever it pleases:. Decimare shrugged. .:Narcissistic lump of metal:.

Harry snatched the shield from Pettigrew. He'd had it so close once before, he wasn't about to let it slip by again.

"Now what?" Pettigrew asked.

"What?"

"You have the shield, you can keep it safe," the former traitor explained. "But what about me? I'm on no one's side, except maybe yours, and even that I'm not sure about."

"Voldemort will kill you if he gets his hands on you," Harry muttered. "And I need you to answer some questions I have about Horcruxes."

Pettigrew's face went ashen. "Where did you hear about those?"

"Dumbledore told me months ago," Harry lied. "We've been trying to find them, but any information you have on them would be really helpful."

"I don't know much," the animagus said. "I know that Lucius had one… and I think there's at least one in Hogwarts--"

"Seriously?" Harry interrupted. "In Hogwarts?"

"Well, everyone knows that Hogwarts is the only place that the Dark Lord considers his home."

Harry scowled. "Only his Death Eaters know that. Probably Dumbledore as well, so of course that explains why I never knew."

"The Headmaster does like his secrets," Pettigrew said feelingly.

Harry was curious despite himself. "What did he keep from you?"

Peter snorted. "He never so much as noticed my existence, he never got the chance to keep secrets."

"You're not bitter," Harry smirked.

.:You are bonding with the ex-traitor:. Decimare sighed. .:Shall I even begin to explain how that is a terrible plan?:.

Harry held up Decimare and Merlin's shield, admiring how the two objects, so different in purpose and origin, complimented the other so perfectly.

.:A sword that can't be blocked, and a shield that can't be penetrated:. the snake hissed. .:Small wonder that whoever owns us could conceivably rule the world:.

'But I don't want to rule the world!'

.:But you _could_:. Decimare smirked. .:Never forget that, just in case you get bored one day and want to do something a bit more… epic:.

'You're so cute when you dream of world domination.'

Decimare scowled and fell silent.

"So?"

Harry was jerked back to reality. "What?"

"What am I going to do now?" Peter pressed the earlier point. "I can't exactly live a normal life."

"Well, you might have thought of that before killing my parents," Harry snapped, then felt immediate remorse when the pitiful man's face fell. "Oh, calm down, I was… okay, telling the truth, but you know I realize that you've changed."

.:The Chamber:. the snake hissed.

'That's a bit of a hassle,' Harry frowned. 'I'd have to sneak him food three times a day, he'd probably get really bored and do something stupid… what about the Room of Requirements?"

.:Have you forgotten?:. Decimare said. .:It hasn't been working for the last couple days:.

'Oh yeah,' Harry sighed. 'I'd love to ask someone why it isn't working, but that would mean admitting I'm trying to run a secret Defense club under Umbridge's nose. And Dobby has no idea what's going on.'

.:At least the classroom you've been using is suitably out of the way:. Decimare noted.

'Well, it's at the end of an endless hallway, so chances were the teachers wouldn't notice us using it.'

"Harry?"

Harry realized that he really needed to stop spacing out in the middle of conversations. "Sorry, Peter. Look, I don't really have anywhere to put you right now. I mean, to keep you safe. Oh! What about the Whomping Willow? I know that Sirius, Dad, and Remus know about it, but it's not like they go there. At all."

"Well, if you really think that would work…"

It occurred to Harry that, despite Peter's evident bravery – he had betrayed both his friends, and his master, after all, and lived to tell the tale – he really didn't enjoy making decisions for himself. Choosing to steal Merlin's shield must have been an incredible accomplishment for him.

"The Shrieking Shack," Harry declared. "We'll get you there right now, unless you have stuff you need to collect first."

Peter waved his hands at himself, indicating that he had no possessions save his clothes and his wand.

"Great," Harry said. "Follow me… er…"

"How did you get here?" Pettigrew asked. "Broomstick? Because I can turn into a rat and sit in your pocket while you fly, if that would work best."

"I'm an animagus," Harry announced. "I can turn into a peregrine falcon. It's not a broomstick, but I'm pretty sure I can carry you in my claws."

Pettigrew was obviously taken aback, but he recovered well. "That's a-amazing!" he stuttered. "I guess that's the first thing James taught you when he… came back."

"Something like that," Harry agreed. "Come on, let's get going. I have class tomorrow morning. It being a weekday and all."

If Peter got the subtle dig, he didn't say anything. The man shrunk down into his rather repulsive rat form and skittered out into the sunlight. Harry followed him, re-wrapping the shield in the burlap cloth as he walked.

'Is this thing going to transform with me?' Harry asked.

.:It must:. Decimare guessed. .:Peter would have travelled a lot in rat form to avoid detection, and that would require somehow bringing the shield with him. Give it a try:.

He did, and it worked beautifully.

Now in falcon form, Harry waddled over to where Peter was perched in the sunlight, looking at him with extreme misgiving.

.:He's a rat, and you're a falcon:. the snake spirit laughed. .:You figure it out:.

Harry grabbed the rat in his talons and took off in the air before Peter could change his mind and run for his life. Peter was pretty heavy, but Harry was able to manage.

They arrived at the Shrieking Shack after a few minutes of flight, and Harry swooped in through a crack in one of the boarded up windows. Setting Peter down on the dusty floor, Harry returned to human form and watched as his ally did the same.

"You can sneak into Hogsmeade and nab food like you've been doing while living in the cave," Harry told Peter. "Voldemort doesn't know about this place, so he'd never look for you here, and Dad and Sirius don't have any reason to be here since Remus is still off doing whatever he's doing."

Peter seized Harry's hand and pumped it up and down. "Thank you so much, Harry," he blubbered. "You saved my life once before, but I never realized how much it meant to me. And then James came back… you have no idea what it means that you're willing to trust me after all I've done."

"Well," Harry said sternly, "if you hadn't saved the shield from Voldemort, you can bet I'd be stunning you right now instead of hiding you. Although I suppose since _you _stole it in the first place…"

"Let's let bygones be bygones, shall we?" Pettigrew urged. "What happens next?"

"You stay here until I need you," Harry declared. "Voldemort is going to attack Hogwarts one of these days, probably sooner than later, and I'm going to need all the dirt on him that you know. Until then, you hide out here and don't get yourself killed. Or kill other people."

"I'm not a murderer," Pettigrew protested.

"Yeah, shut up," Harry said. "You're on thin enough ice as it is. Don't give me that innocence crap, it doesn't suit you."

If Peter found Harry's tone hurtful, he didn't say anything.

"I'll be at school, acting like a normal teenager, while secretly trying to work out a way to bring down Lord What's-His-Face," Harry announced. "You stay here and keep out of trouble."

He switched smoothly to falcon form and zoomed out of the Shrieking Shack. Pettigrew watched him go with a look of awe.

Perhaps it was the man's expression, or just the dramatic nature of the exit, but Harry suddenly felt very, very cool.

When Harry returned to his dormitory and slipped beneath the covers, he didn't suspect for an instant the intense battle that was occurring right under his very nose.

.:oOo:.

Sirius and James had planted cameras _everywhere_, including the boys' dormitory. Alright, just Harry's dormitory, and only to give them a view of the windows and doors. They were his _guardians_, they were _allowed _to do creepy things like that… or so they told themselves.

Thus they quite clearly saw Harry on the monitors, standing by the door, pulling on the invisibility cloak, and then a door seemingly opening and closing of its own accord. This led them to conclude that Harry was once again sneaking out on some secret mission that would most likely end in his imminent doom.

Then their attention was somewhat distracted by the appearance of about twenty Death Eaters in the middle of the school grounds.

"Where the hell did they come from?" Sirius gaped, peering intently at the monitor. "You can't just Apparate into Hogwarts."

"They must have just walked onto the grounds?" James guessed. "We're the only security system here, at least the only system aimed against people on foot. If they'd come by broom they'd be pulverized, but…"

They watched as the Death Eaters snuck through the front doors, into the entrance hall, and then up the staircase.

"It looks like they're headed for Gryffindor tower," James noted. "Ironically, Harry is not there at the moment."

"That doesn't mean they're going to get away with an assassination attempt," Sirius scowled.

"Damn straight."

They examined the scene.

"As tempted as I am to just go down there and massacre them myself…" James trailed off.

"We've always wanted to give Operation Foefire a test run," Sirius wheedled. "Come on, Prongs, this is the perfect opportunity! And Dumbledore can't even get mad at us, because we'll be killing the bad guys, not our own students!"

James smacked his friend. "We weren't going to test it on the students, you idiot, we'd use dummies or something."

"Irrelevant," Sirius proclaimed. "Come on!"

It didn't take much convincing. "Oh fine," James sighed.

"You want to see this as much as I do," Sirius laughed.

"Punch it."

Sirius folded a control panel out from the wall, which contained, among other things, a very large red button that said "Push". They were going to have gone with the clichéd "Do Not Push", but they didn't want to confuse themselves or anyone else who would eventually be using the system.

He pushed the button.

.:oOo:.

Lucius Malfoy felt that their little raid was going rather well. He hadn't been very fond of the Dark Lord's plan initially, mainly because his twenty-man force, comprised entirely of new Death Eaters save himself, would be going in without backup. However, Voldemort had insisted that as this was a stealth operation, they would move undetected through the school, and would therefore easily accomplish their goal of kidnapping Potter.

He also didn't understand why he had to be in charge of the raid, until Voldemort had explained rather succinctly that he didn't trust the blonde aristocrat one bit, and that if Lucius wished to continue in his service alive, he might consider being a bit more eager to follow his Lord's commands.

Lucius had immediately accepted the role.

And to his surprise, things had actually turned out as easily as Voldemort predicted. Typical good guy behavior, the denizens of Hogwarts hadn't posted so much as a guard at their gates, and their patrols of the grounds were in the form of two sixteen year olds making out behind a shrubbery.

This had made him flash back to sunlit days spent with Narcissa by the lakeside, before Draco, before she hated everything he and the Dark Lord stood for. It was the only reason he didn't kill the two lovers were they stood. Let no one ever say that Lucius was not compassionate. Not that anyone ever had. Without being killed for it, that was.

When they entered the school, Lucius got the distinct feeling that something was… off. None of his fellow Death Eaters noticed it, of course, because they were hopelessly inept. But Lucius was an experienced enough wizard to recognize the strange tingle of magic that had not been present at his last trip to the school.

It took him a long time to understand it. They had reached the third floor by the time Lucius realized that that magical tingle was focused in certain areas. Thrusting a fist in the air, the Death Eaters halted behind him and instantly went on high alert. Wand held steadily in his fist, Lucius carefully approached the strange magical signature. It was perched in the very top corner of the corridor, and looked like a little metal box with some sort of lense at the front.

How curious. Lucius stepped up on his tiptoes to examine further, and discovered completely by accident that one of the stone ceiling blocks by the strange apparatus had a similarly strange magical signature.

Although Lucius had never seen a muggle video camera, he knew enough about lenses to realize that someone was probably watching them.

"We've been discovered," he hissed. "Everyone prepare for immediate evacuation."

Half a castle away, Sirius pressed the big red button.

It was Lucius' proximity to the camera that saved his life. The magical sub-machine guns placed strategically throughout the halls of Hogwarts were designed, when activated, to take out everything that moved, starting with the greatest concentration of activity. As in this case it was the horde of Death Eaters, Lucius was able to leap out of the way to avoid the first barrage of fire.

All along the hallway the innocent-seeming ceiling tiles disappeared, to be replaced with not-so-innocent, fully loaded sub-machine guns. The Death Eaters didn't have a chance. Even the quickest of the bunch, who managed to get a shield up while the five men in front of him were pummeled by bullets, was shot in the back a split-second later.

Lucius, having avoided the initial wave, alone had the chance to erect a proper, bullet-proof shield. He took off at a run for the nearest window, hoping that while the strange metal-shooters were magical, the bullets wouldn't be as well. He was also doing a fair bit of mental cursing, but that was rather irrelevant to his escape attempt.

He made it to the window with inches to spare. Giving up the shield, Lucius focused all his energy on shooting himself through the thick glass window without knocking himself unconscious.

Then he realized that, although he'd escaped the guns, which had gone silent, he was still about thirty feet off the ground.

"Bloody hell," he grunted.

A flick of his wand, and Lucius managed to avoid an unseemly, splattery death. It still hurt like the devil when he crashed to the ground, of course, but he figured that, compared to being impaled with pieces of metal, a couple bruises was acceptable.

Mocking laughter drifted through the night air.

Whirling furiously, Lucius peered up and spotted Sirius Black and James Potter hanging out one of the seventh floor windows, making rude gestures and cackling maniacally.

Lucius cursed.

"You won't get away with this!" he bellowed at the pair, completely forgetting that he was supposed to be on a stealth mission. "When the Dark Lord razes your miserable school to the ground, we'll see who's laughing then!"

James wiped tears from his eyes. "Bloody hell, Malfoy, you just got massacred by our 'miserable' school. You might want to rebuild your credibility before you go around threatening us."

"Not to mention that the next time you and your Death Eater minions step inside the school, you're going to get exactly the same treatment," Sirius added. "Good luck trying to defend yourself against sub-machine guns. Especially now that we know they work. We're going to overpower those things like there's no tomorrow."

Lucius did not have a satisfactory response for this statement, so he let out a string of very graphic, and somewhat disturbing, curses. When they grew a bit too foul, Sirius pulled out a spare gun and let out a barrage of bullets.

Malfoy emerged from the bush he'd taken shelter in with a more subdued expression.

Then James pulled out a much larger gun, about the size of a small tree, and Lucius decided that he should probably report back to his Lord before he got himself killed.

Pulling a portkey from his pocket, Lucius whispered the trigger word and disappeared with a pop.

Up in the Sentinel room, Sirius and James whooped victoriously.

"I like the bazooka," Sirius grinned. "It's a nice touch."

"Lily would kill me if she knew I have this," James said, patting the ridiculously large muggle weapon fondly.

Sirius clapped James on the back. "We did good, mate."

"Moony would be so proud," James sniffed.

"His last letter says he's coming back soon," Sirius reminded him. "And speaking of, we need to go dispose of those bodies before some darling little child runs across them and is scarred for life."

They began to head for the doorway.

"Maybe if they weren't out of bed in the first place, they wouldn't have the chance to be scarred for life."

"Harry!" Sirius exclaimed.

They rushed back to the monitor bank. Harry was in his bed, sleeping peacefully.

"Sneaky little bugger," Sirius said fondly.

"That's my son you're talking about," James sighed. "I wonder where he went."

"At least he isn't dead," Sirius noted.

"I guess we should be thankful for that," his friend shrugged. "Come on, we've got some corpses to clean up."

Sirius groaned. "I love my job."

.:oOo:.

Sirius and James were visited by the Headmaster himself the next morning. Albus seemed a bit disturbed about something.

"Hello gentlemen," Dumbledore greeted. "Please sit down."

They let the older man pick a seat in their common area, then took seats on either side.

"What can we do for you?" James asked as innocently as possible.

"I know what you've been doing," the Headmaster told them sternly. "Removing the portraits – my eyes and ears, as it were – was clever, but I have other ways of keeping tabs on things in my own school. If you really wanted to install cameras around the school for security purposes, you could have simply asked."

They exchanged a guilty look.

"I would not have confronted you on this," he continued, "except that this morning my… sources informed me that last night there was a terrible racket near the third floor corridor, accompanied by, quote unquote, the 'terrified, heart-wrenching screams of death itself'. I don't suppose you'd care to explain?"

"We were practicing our singing?" James tried.

"We brought a few mermen in for tea and crumpets," Sirius said wildly. "Hence the ear-splitting screeching."

"Filch tells me he found bloodstains on the floor."

"But we vanished them! I mean…" James trailed off sheepishly.

Dumbledore sighed. "Boys, I am torn between believing that you have just saved the school from a dangerous attack, or that you have apparently taken to butchering students. Please tell me it is the former."

"We admit nothing!"

James scowled and smacked his friend. "Lucius Malfoy and about twenty Death Eaters snuck into Hogwarts last night – they just walked in, disillusioned, so they didn't set off the intrusion alarms – and we saw them on the cameras, so we took care of them."

"And where are they now?" the Headmaster pressed.

"Eating dirt," James said delicately.

Dumbledore blinked. "How?"

"Superior technology and tactics," Sirius explained. "Malfoy ran back to Voldy with his tail between his legs."

"Ah, so Mister Malfoy survived?"

"Unfortunately," James groused. "We took a few potshots at him, but the slimy bastard dodged."

"You got into a serious magical duel in the middle of my school?" Albus frowned. "Boys… I appreciate the lengths you have gone to protect Hogwarts, but when there is an intrusion you must contact myself and the teachers immediately! I don't know how you managed to kill twenty men, but you could have been seriously injured!"

James was fairly certain that Albus would not react well at this juncture if he learned that it had in fact been machine guns that killed the Death Eaters, and not the intense duel to the death that he was apparently envisioning.

"We just wanted to be heroes," he said petulantly.

"We won't do it again," Sirius agreed.

Dumbledore smiled despite himself. "Just remember that next time you attempt a stunt like this, I won't be the one lecturing you. It will be a certain redhead, who is far more prone to physical violence then myself."

The two fully grown men blanched.

"You wouldn't actually tell Lily, would you?" James gaped.

"She would murder us!" Sirius agreed fervently. "You're the headmaster, you're supposed to protect us from threats like her!"

"I fear you two did not get enough sleep last night," Dumbledore laughed. "Take the day off, spend some time with your son, perhaps. I told him about the Dark Lord's immortality ventures yesterday."

Sirius and James were instantly alert.

"How did he take it?"

"He believes that finding the Horcruxes is his responsibility, which was inevitable," the Headmaster shrugged. "At the same time, I have urged him to let adults handle it for the time being. He is still in school, after all."

"Plus you're still afraid that Voldemort is going to possess him at his next available opportunity," Sirius said pointedly.

"I trust Harry with my life," Dumbledore responded. "But he is only a child, and the Dark Lord is very powerful."

"How come he hasn't tried the possession thing yet, then?" Sirius demanded. "I mean, aside from sending Harry to the Ministry in that botched assassination attempt."

"I fear I have no idea," the Headmaster sighed. "But I have several theories, and I am pursuing them to the best of my ability."

"You realize that Harry is going to try and find all the horcruxes by himself," James said.

Sirius suddenly clapped his hands.

"Er…" James blinked.

"We'll find them for him," Sirius announced. "Albus, you just tell Harry that it's all under control, so he can live a normal life, and James and I will destroy them for you."

Albus chuckled. "I'm afraid that if it were that simple, I would have destroyed them myself, years ago."

"Yes, but we have a slight advantage over you," James grinned, catching onto Sirius' train of thought.

"Oh really?"

"Trust me, we can handle it."

"I'm not sure that…"

"Look, you just make sure that Hogwarts keeps running, and we'll take care of the Horcruxes."

Dumbledore looked very unsettled by the prospect, and probably with good reason. "I'll give you everything I have on them," he said finally. "But I shall continue my search regardless."

The stately old Headmaster rose to his feet and began to depart. As he reached the door, he paused, then turned back with a decided twinkle in his bright blue eyes.

"Oh, and boys, if you must use those barbaric muggle weapons, at least have the sense to pick up all the bullets afterwards."

Dumbledore smiled to himself as he heard James and Sirius fall off their chairs.

"I love being Headmaster," he thought happily.

.:oOo:.


	49. Tempore Stulto, Gemini Vincent

Disclaimer: I own nothing that has anything to do with anything that has anything to do with Harry Potter. In conclusion, Harry Potter rules.

Harry Potter and the Dream Come True

Chapter Forty-Nine: Tempore Stulto, Gemini Vincent

With the added weight of Peter's survival on Harry's mind, along with the myriad of secrets he was keeping, his attempts to train his classmates for battle, his never-ending quest to perfect his sword fighting, and still somehow making time for his friends, Harry was understandably stressed by the time March rolled around.

.:Imagine how much worse it would be if you were still worrying about the shield as well:. Decimare pointed out. .:Or Voldemort possessing you. Or the horcruxes, for that matter:.

Dumbledore had approached him several days after the initial unveiling and informed Harry that he had his top men in the Order of the Phoenix tracking down the horcruxes, and that Harry was therefore to concentrate on his schoolwork so that he could assist in the hunt once his education was through.

Harry wasn't entirely convinced that he wasn't needed, but Dumbledore actually looked him in the eye for almost a quarter of the conversation, so he decided to take the man at his word.

He had stashed the shield underneath his bed, along with his dirty socks and torn parchment. Harry figured that, in the grand scheme of things, Merlin would forgive him for providing such an inglorious hiding spot for his most prized possession.

Decimare was rather miffed about this. .:You should keep it with you at all times:. he insisted. .:What if someone attacks you in the middle of class? You'll be helpless!:.

'That's absurd, and you're insane,' Harry responded.

He _did _take the shield with him when he went down to the Chamber of Secrets, however. If he wanted to use the shield effectively against Voldemort, Harry figured that the first step was to figure out how to actually use a shield.

After the first training session with the shield against his shadow ally, Harry quickly discovered that he was back to square one.

.:The shield is an extension of your arm:. Decimare explained. .:It is also a very heavy extension, so you'd better have been building up arm strength like I told you, or you are going to find yourself in a lot pain:.

It took Harry's shadow creature about five seconds to send Harry crashing through the air into one of the huge carved marble columns. The green light of the Chamber glinted eerily off the polished floor as Harry scrambled to his feet.

"This thing is too heavy!" Harry complained. "How am I supposed to block anything if they slice me in half before I can even start lifting the damn thing?"

.:Practice:.

So he did. At first he was met with abject failure. Decimare spent most nights in perpetual sarcasm mode, criticizing and denigrating Harry's every move.

.:The point is to block the sword with the shield, Master, not your spleen:.

Even though Harry made sure to put his opponent on the easiest mode he could think of, the shadow still packed a punch, and Harry had to get painkillers from the hospital wing more than once. Thankfully Madam Pomfrey didn't ask questions, because Harry wouldn't have known what to say.

"Why, I got these bruises from my secret sojourns into the dreaded Chamber of Secrets, where I practice a mild form of necromancy in order to perfect my sword training with the sadistic brainchild of one of the evilest wizards in history."

Harry suspected that such an explanation wouldn't go over well.

On the plus side, he did gradually improve, although as Decimare was quick to point out, Harry was _not _a natural with the shield in any way, shape, or form. Ginny came down to practice a few times, and she improved as well, but she quickly discovered that it was fruitless, and painful, to try and hit Harry while he had the shield. The thing was diamond hard, and sent waves of pain up her arm every time she struck it.

Even without her help, Harry progressed as rapidly as he could, training nearly every night like he was. By the end of February he could keep the shield aloft throughout the entirety of a short fight, although he was still terrible at actually blocking with it.

March brought with it an almost endless deluge of rainstorms, which the students of Hogwarts found more than a little irritating. This was because the weather was finally turning warm, but due to the rain it was still unpleasant to be outside. Exams were also lurking in the near future, and most students wanted to enjoy themselves while they could.

O.W.L.s were also approaching, and Hermione had metamorphosed from cool, collected genius to manic, on-the-verge-of-a-mental-breakdown basket case. It was fascinating to watch her rocket around the library, pulling books from shelves at a lightning pace, cross-referencing like a demon, and yelling at anyone who got in her way.

This usually meant Ron, who took it in stride.

"She's my girlfriend now, so she's entitled to yell at me," he reasoned.

"Mate, she'd yell at you anyway," Harry snorted. "That's just how she is when exams are coming up."

"I'm going to go do my homework," Ron decided.

Harry gaped at his best mate. "What has she _done _to you?"

"When I finish my homework, she rewards me," he said evasively.

Harry choked on his laughter and mercifully didn't press any further.

Ginny found herself rather out of the loop, mostly because Harry, Ron, and Hermione were swept up in the fever that was O.W.L.s. Still, she and Harry managed to sneak enough alone time to keep them both in fairly high spirits.

Not all students were coping quite as well, unfortunately. Neville was seen trading a sprig of one of his prized plants for a large spatula from Tristan, who had apparently promised that it would bring the chubby boy good luck. Hannah Abbot ran through the halls screaming one day, but that was reportedly due to a bad breakup, not the impending exams.

One thing that Harry noticed was the distinct lack of Fred and George. Usually around this time they would be doing something outrageous, like starting a betting pool over which student would break down first, or which teacher would be hexed by an overwhelmed student. But they were almost always off the radar.

This was because Fred and George had tried to play with the space-time continuum, and had found themselves in a spot of trouble. Luckily, they had the perfect plan to get themselves out of their Mongol-induced panic.

.:oOo:.

"We just go forward in time, and ask our past selves how we got rid of them," Fred said as if it were obvious. "How could it possibly fail?"

"Well, for starters, we could change the future and accidentally destroy ourselves," George responded.

"That's not how it works at all," Fred dismissed. "You accidentally destroy yourself when you go in the past. Get it straight."

"If time travel were able to solve situations like ours, someone would have invented it years ago."

"They did. It's called the time turner."

"I mean being able to travel _forward_."

"_We _did. It's called the uber time turner."

"Which I still say is a terrible, terrible name," George sighed. "I'm not going to talk you out of this, am I?"

"Damn straight."

So on March 13th, which was coincidentally a Friday, Fred and George activated their mind-bogglingly complex (even to them) "uber" time turner, and shot forwards five years into the future.

The first thing that they noticed was that Hogwarts was rather different, if by different you meant completely populated by house elves.

"This is odd," Fred noted.

"Master Weasley!" a house elf cried. About a hundred house elves took up the cry.

"So much for going unnoticed," George glowered.

"We need to find ourselves," Fred told the house elves. "Where do we live?"

"Why, here!"

"We live in Hogwarts?" George blinked.

"You'se owns Hogwarts now," the elf explained.

A female elf bopped the other on its comically large head. "You stupid, they Headmasters, not owners."

"Wait, we're _both _Headmasters?"

"Yous mastered the space-time continuum, of course they puts yous in charge of Hogwarts."

Fred and George beamed at each other. "How about that! Headmasters!" Fred exclaimed.

"Bet the students hate us," George cackled. "The stuff we must do to them…"

Then something occurred to Fred. "Wait. Don't you notice anything strange about us? Like, chronologically speaking?"

A tall, bespectacled man with a massive beard entered the hallway, casting them a faintly amused expression.

"You two must be pre-Obliteration."

The twins exchanged a confused look. "What?" they chorused.

"The Obliteration of Voldemort and all the evil he stood for," the man elaborated. "Yes, you are definitely pre-O, or you would have known what it meant. You also would know that Fred and George are the greatest and only time travelers of our era, and that they play with the timeline as if it were a children's block set."

"Why block set?"

"Don't ask me, you said it," he shrugged. "Or _will _say it. I'm not quite sure how the whole thing works."

"So we're… some sort of heroes or something?" George wondered.

"Dude, we time travel whenever and wherever we want, according to this bloke," Fred scoffed. "No wonder we rule Hogwarts."

"After the Obliteration, in which Harry Potter and his armies _decimated _the Dark Lord, so to speak--" he seemed to find the word 'decimated' hilarious for some reason, "—it was revealed that you two could bend space and time at your leisure. Technological and cultural innovations rose at an astonishing rate, and historians were for the first time able to acquire an accurate account of history. All preconceptions about human thought and religion suffered an upheaval, and the wizarding world has since been able to enter an era of unparalleled peace and prosperity."

The twins gaped at the bearded man.

"Okay, we officially _rock_," Fred proclaimed.

"I'm surprised they didn't build a monument for us," George said.

"Oh, they did," the man assured them. "Hundreds. They have to, since you two keep popping up in random places looking completely different each time. I don't know how you keep track of yourselves."

"I'm sure we'll find out soon enough," Fred grinned.

"Can we meet ourselves now?" George asked. "Not that you aren't fascinating, but, you know, we'd like to talk with someone from the old days. Namely us."

"I guess I really have changed," the man laughed. "I suppose stabbing your parents' torturer through the heart will do that to a man. I'm Neville Longbottom."

There was simply no response to a revelation like that.

"Shouldn't you _not _be telling us about the past?" Fred wondered. "I mean, anything you tell us we can use to alter our own timeline."

"Lulu wrote a paper about that a few months ago," Neville said. "I don't understand it at all, but she says that history is set in stone, so whatever you do was going to have happened anyway, so you can't change anything even if you try. Except that things do seem to constantly be changing, so I'm not sure she knows what she's talking about."

"Lulu?" the twins chorused blankly.

Neville blushed. "Oh. Luna Lovegood-Longbottom. My wife. She's a famous metatheorist now."

"But…" Fred stuttered.

"We thought that she and Tristan were… you know…" George said awkwardly.

"Oh, they still are," Neville agreed.

"Er…"

"It's all a bit confusing," Neville admitted. "I don't understand it myself. I mean, they're together, but he's never around, except that he often is, and that's only when he's not somewhere else. Whenever Tristan is involved, things get rather… muddled. I thought that after he massacred the… well, let's not go into it, shall we?"

Fred and George mentally noted that they should give Tristan a wider berth from now on.

"Oh! I remembered something!" Neville suddenly exclaimed. "Fred and George – I mean, my Fred and George, not you two – told me that when I ran into you, I should take you to see them when you started asking about Tristan."

"Why, they don't think we can handle it?" Fred scowled.

"No, George said something about 'exploiting the planes of existence for their own diabolical purposes'. I think they were referring to you."

"I am going to hit me when I see him," George decided.

"Right behind you," Fred said darkly.

"I'll just take you to them, shall I?" Neville said, giving a nervous laugh.

"Good plan."

.:oOo:.

The first thing they noticed about their future selves was that for some inexplicable and inexcusable reason, they had both decided to sport hideous purple goatees.

"Why?" Fred moaned.

"Because we think it looks dashing," future Fred said. "We went to Zargonia a few weeks ago, and all the royalty there have purple goatees. We decided to bring a bit of culture to this otherwise drab school."

"What's Zargonia?" George demanded.

"New Zealand in about six hundred years."

"Well then," Fred blinked.

"How was the trip?" future George asked. "And when are you two from again?"

"1995," George offered. "Pre-Obliteration, as Neville would say."

"Way to take away the thrill of victory, by the way," Fred scowled. "It's no fun when you know who wins."

"But now you get to drop cryptic hints at key moments purely for your own amusement," future Fred noted.

"He's got a point," George laughed.

"So why are we Headmaster?" Fred asked.

"Because, in terms of education, we are the leading experts," future Fred explained. "Seeing as we can prove or disprove any theory just by hopping in time. Which we've gotten exceedingly good at, by the way."

"What happens to Harry?" George wondered. "Last time we met ourselves, we told ourselves to keep him alive and on track at all costs."

"Oh, he does alright," future George said vaguely. "Suffice it to say that he is currently the richest, most widely respected man in the world. Ginny is considered the luckiest woman in the world, he lavishes attention and material wealth on her 24/7, not to mention that they're both the top Quidditch players in their leagues. Hermione is the Minister for Magic of Europe – she created the post, said we had to be united against inequality, or something – and Ron is the Minister of Defense, also created by Hermione. Dumbledore is dead – don't worry, it was old age, and we've gotten some pretty convincing evidence that he's happy and at peace. Let's see… Sirius and James started a fashion design company – didn't see that one coming – and they've both been voted 'Coolest Guy in Existence' at least twice. Mrs Potter is doing something really top secret, no one knows what's going on, but she's also raising Harry's two sisters – twins, awesomely enough – so it's all a bit confusing. Remus founded a colony for werewolves and other outcasts, it's doing really well… what else…"

His gargantuan speech finally trailed off.

"And all that is going to happen regardless of what we do?" Fred demanded.

"Who knows?" future George said easily. "Professor Lovegood swears that history doesn't change, but then she's got that weird thing going with the Abomination, so who can say."

"The Abomination?" George pressed.

"You know, Tristan."

Fred and George exchanged alarmed looks.

"And you call him that because?"

Future Fred clapped a hand over future George's mouth. Future George glowered at Fred and knocked him away.

"I wasn't going to say anything!" he bellowed.

"I know, but when we came forward to see us, future me did that, so I have to carry on the tradition."

Future George shrugged.

"Look…" Fred said slowly. "Are you saying that Tristan does something terrible?"

Their future selves burst out laughing.

"Which means?" George said.

"Sorry," future Fred sniggered, wiping tears from his eyes. "It's just… Tristan is so… and then we…" He dissolved in hysterical cackles again.

The twins sighed. "We're a bit idiotic," Fred observed.

"Been round the twist," George agreed. "Again."

Their future selves eventually recovered and were able to carry on semi-intelligent conversation once more.

"So you came to ask us something," future Fred announced. "We know what it is, of course, but it's more fun if you ask."

"It's all so nostalgic," future George said happily.

"We need to know what to do about the Mongols," Fred explained.

"And the Romans," George added. "And the French."

"They're somewhere in Hogwarts, and we need to find them so we can send them back," Fred concluded. "They suck as bodyguards, and Sirius and James will kill us if they find out we didn't return them."

"Oh yes, because no one knew about the uber time turner back then," future Fred remembered.

"I still think it's a stupid name," future George sighed.

"Tell me about it," George groaned.

"Listen, just leave them be," future Fred advised. "They're planning your grisly destruction at the moment--"

"What!"

"—but by the time things really come to a head… trust me, you'll be glad you kept them."

The four redheads stared at each other.

"Oh!" future George exclaimed. "I just remembered!"

He reached into the Headmaster's desk and pulled out a rumpled sheet of paper.

"This," he said, "is a list."

"Not again," Fred moaned. "We just gave ourselves a list of things to do, we don't want another one!"

"It's not things to do," future George explained patiently, "it's a list of the horcruxes."

Silence blanketed the room.

"The _what_?" the twins chorused.

"You fail," future Fred snapped, seizing the list from his twin. "Listen, Voldemort uses the horcruxes to make himself immortal. So obviously someone needs to find them and destroy them. That's why you need to give this list to Sirius and James."

"They destroy Voldemort?" George asked, struggling to make sense of things.

"No, they give the list to _Remus_, who uses his mad intellect to _collect _the horcruxes with his friends' help, who then give the horcruxes to _Harry_, who _obliterates _them with his _sword_, hence the _Obliteration_."

"Well, it all makes sense now," Fred said sarcastically.

"Harry has a sword?"

"Focus," future George told his younger self. "Just give this list to Sirius or James, and this bright, glorious future is ours for the taking."

"Where did you get the list anyway?" George wondered.

"We gave it to ourselves, in this very office when we were your age and went forward in time," future Fred said as if it were self-evident. "Obviously."

"Yeah, but where did _they _get the list from?"

"This is the uber time turner all over again," Fred sighed. "Time turners can't go forward. Our future selves come back in time and give us the recipe to create one. Where did they get it? _Their _future selves gave it to them. Completely logical, and completely impossible. Just accept it and move on."

"So what do we do in the final battle?" George demanded. "Put events in motion, then sit back and watch them happen?"

"Of course not," future Fred snorted. "You two get the most important job of all."

"We don't have to kill Voldemort, do we?" Fred asked queasily. "I don't fancy murder, to be honest. Isn't that more Harry's forte, anyway?"

"You have to stop Tristan from destroying Hogwarts," future George concluded.

The twins were again stunned into silence. "I didn't even know that was a possibility," George admitted. "He seems so peaceful."

"Peaceful?" future Fred scoffed. "He's the--"

Future George clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Dammit, I wasn't going to say anything!" future Fred shouted.

"I know, but when _we _met our current selves…"

"Do shut up," future Fred scowled.

"And how do we do that?" Fred pressed.

"You'll find out when the time comes," future George promised.

"You're maddeningly unhelpful, you know that?"

"Oy!" George snapped.

"I was insulting future you, not actual you!"

"Same difference!"

The future twins carefully interposed themselves between the bickering redheads.

"It's time for you to go back," future Fred announced. He shoved the list into George's hands. "Give this to Sirius and James as soon as you can. Oh, but do it anonymously, or they'll start asking questions."

"And leave the Mongols be!" future George scolded. "The Romans and French too. Oh, but please make sure you smack Napoleon for me, the irritating git."

"Why?" George asked.

"You'll understand when the time comes," future George promised. "Now shoo!"

"And keep an eye on Tristan while you're at it," future Fred added. "The kid's a ticking time grenade."

"Bomb," Fred corrected.

"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" future George said with a long-suffering air. "Kid can't even be linked to a metaphor without screwing it up."

"We're going to go now," George declared, extracting the uber time turner. "I can only hope that Fred and I manage to retain our sanity, which you two have obviously failed spectacularly at."

"Cheers," Fred said, and grasped George's arm.

They disappeared.

Future Fred and George exchanged an amused look.

"I almost wish we could have gone back with them," future Fred sighed. "The pre-O months were absolutely hysterical."

"Yeah, except for the…"

"Oh yeah."

They lapsed into an uneasy silence.

.:oOo:.

James and Sirius approached them the next day, apparently attempting to be as inconspicuous as possible.

"Fred, George, we need to play chess with you. Now."

"Er… we're in the middle of Transfiguration class."

At the front of the room, McGonagall tapped her wand against her arm and cast them an annoyed look.

"So you are," James blinked.

"Sorry, Professor, but this is a really urgent… game of chess," Sirius said.

Unable to formulate a response to properly express the depths of her irritation, McGonagall simply glared and gestured at the door. They made a hasty exit.

"Not that we don't love cutting class short," Fred began, "but in all fairness, you know that we hate chess. It makes too much sense."

"We don't actually want to play chess," James said unnecessarily. "We need a favour."

And he suddenly had the twins' undivided attention.

"You somehow got your hands on a horde of fur-clad foreigners who look and act surprisingly like ancient Mongolians," he explained. "Now, I'm not one to question odd occurrences, but it occurs to me that perhaps you two are hiding certain… abilities that could come in incredibly handy."

"Perhaps," Fred said shiftily.

"Continue," George urged.

"We don't pretend to know what you two are capable of," Sirius obliged. "And of course we have a few tricks up our sleeve as well, so we know where you're coming from. However, we have recently taken on a rather… tedious assignment, and we were wondering if you had any items or information that might put us on the right track."

"What exactly is the assignment?"

"We can't say," James said regrettably. "But rest assured, it's important. To the fate of the world, actually."

"So…" Fred trailed off. "You want information and/or items to help you accomplish a goal that you can't divulge the nature of."

"Yes," Sirius agreed. "Interested?"

The twins exchanged an amused look.

"What do you know, we were right," George snorted. "Guess we aren't as cracked as we thought."

"I think this is what you want," Fred said, pulling a crumpled sheet from his pocket.

Sirius and James cast the paper an uncertain look.

"Either we were way too vague, or they know way more than they should," James mused. "What the hell, we'll take what we can get. What is it?"

"A list of the horcroes," George said.

"Horcruxes," Fred snapped, holding up the sheet for his twin to read. "There's an X, see?"

"Whatever," George dismissed. "It'll tell you exactly where they all are, and how they are being guarded. Good enough?"

James and Sirius were hovering somewhere between ecstasy and extreme disbelief.

"That should about do it, yeah," Sirius gaped. "Good work, mates."

"We'll take it," James decided, acquiring the parchment and holding it reverently, as if it were the words of Merlin himself. Then he gave the twins a serious look. "I know you aren't going to tell me, but… where did you get this?"

"Ask us no questions," they chorused with huge grins.

Sirius rubbed his temples tiredly. "We're getting old, Prongs."

"Nah, everyone else is just getting younger."

Apparently feeling that the insanity quota had been filled for the day, Sirius seized James' arm and dragged him off down the corridor.

Fred and George blinked.

"That was a lot easier than expected," Fred observed.

"One less thing to think about," George shrugged. "Come on, if we time our re-entry just right, we can walk in just as the bell rings. McGonagall's expression will be hilarious."

"We're free for the rest of the class, why go back?"

There was a pause.

"Want to go kidnap first years?" Fred asked.

"Why?" George demanded. "They're so small and helpless."

"And make amusing sounds when tossed in the lake," Fred reminded him. "Oooh, or when abandoned in rarely used dungeon corridors!"

"As long as we don't use Hufflepuffs, they're just depressing."

"Sweet."

.:oOo:.

March 15th, the middle of the month, and called Ides by the Romans of old. A seemingly innocent day, yet one fraught with surprises for one Harry Potter.

This is because the Ides, for the ancient, and presently hiding in the Room of Requirements, Romans, had a rather special meaning.

"Today is the day on which Brutus brutally murdered our beloved sovereign, Julius Caesar!" Marc Antony bellowed from atop a stump. His legionnaires were arrayed before him in the clearing, in full battle regalia and looking eager for some good old-fashioned bloodshed.

"I, his confidante and right hand man, was thrust aside upon his death! Honourless, friendless, I wandered the world until I met my one salvation, the Queen Cleopatra. And _then_, just as I finally found peace, our love was ripped to pieces! Now we are stuck in this world of madmen and witchcraft, and it is the anniversary of our leader's death. I say we FIGHT!"

"Blood!" his troops roared.

Perched in a nearby tree, Napoleon and Genghis exchanged an aggrieved look.

"Ze fool will get 'imself killed," Napoleon groaned. "Zen where will we be?"

"He still has not mastered the concept of telling time," Genghis said in unconcerned tones. "It is only a few hours past midnight. He can charge around for hours, none of the witches will be up, and certainly not the red-haired demons."

"At least 'is idiocy works with us, for once," Napoleon sighed.

"To victory!" Antony bellowed, sprinting for the door. His troops took a second to organize themselves, then followed at a more sedate march. They were legionnaires, after all, marching was much more their style than frenzied charges.

About a hundred meters away, Harry was stumbling back from an intense training session in the Chamber. He didn't usually take the route past the Room of Requirements, but he was getting rather annoyed that the place was still out of commission, and so checked it every so often to see if it was working again.

Perhaps the smartest thing he'd ever done, for Merlin only knew what could have happened if Marc Antony was allowed loose on the halls of Hogwarts in his rage. Even in the middle of the night, students were prone to roaming, and Harry was the only one at all equipped to handle a bloodthirsty Roman general.

Having caught glimpses of various historical figures darting past doorways before, as had everyone else in Hogwarts attentive enough to notice, Harry wasn't as surprised as he should have been when Marc Antony leapt out of the Room of Requirements, roaring savagely.

"The room _does _work!" Harry exclaimed, then gaped. "You are _not _a student here, mate."

"Te necabo!" the man snarled, unsheathing a sword and leaping towards him.

.:Wake up!:. Decimare snapped.

Harry instantly called forth the sword, barely raising it in time to block the incoming blow.

.:Remember how I told you that you would be attacked one day, and wish you had the shield to protect yourself with?:. the snake spirit hissed smugly. .:That would be now:.

'Oh, shut up,' Harry snapped. He met the next stroke with a smooth counter-attack, then forced the strange man into a series of parries that carried him back down the hallway.

.:Keep him on his toes. Excellent. Try to find some stairs, so you can knock him down them:.

Harry was appalled. 'That's cheating!'

.:Heroes:. Decimare sighed. .:Always getting in the way of a good laugh:.

"Quit it!" Harry commanded the Roman, who was yelling something in Latin and furiously fighting for every inch of ground. Sweeping Decimare around, Harry attempted to knock the man from his feet, but unfortunately the Roman was very experienced, and easily dodged.

"Caesar vivit!"

"Shut up!"

Finally Harry managed to back the crazed man into a corner, and, having proven himself the superior swordsman, proceeded to knock the man's sword flying. The Roman, predictably, continued to yell angrily, except now he was apparently attempting to defend himself with his bracers.

.:Repeat after me:. Decimare sighed.

'Huh?'

.:Nunc fugere debes. Supero sed non necabis. Fugi!:.

Harry dutifully repeated the words.

The Roman looked absolutely livid, but he must have noticed at some point that he did not in fact possess a weapon, for he ducked past Harry and raced back into the Room of Requirements. The door slammed shut behind him and disappeared.

Harry scratched his head. "That was… odd."

.:oOo:.

A/N: Translations and what not:

Chapter Title: Time being foolish, the twins win.

Antony #1: You will die!

Antony #2: Caesar lives!

Decimare: Now you must flee. I win, but you will not die. Flee!


End file.
